A space of my own

Yes, still alive.

Achievement Unlocked: Friend Acquired!

Shut up.

Making a new friend tonight. Hooray for strange new people from the internet! Report me missing if you see no activity from me in the next 24-48 hours.

I should be fine, just taking precautions. If you want to know what's up, pop by my place Thursday night for book club.

My 21st/22nd/Graduation/Leaving party is Saturday May 16th. Location is the central city (will be more specific on invites) and time is to be decided, but probably from something like 7pm. If you are reading this, you may be invited.

Also, I had a dream last night where I was playing some sort of videogame. Sad, I know. At least my subconscious made up some sort of interesting looking fantasy rpg with guns rather than taking some existing game. Nothing would be worse than playing World of Warcraft in your sleep, surely.

Shit. What's sad is that nothing's happened for me over the past few months, seriously. Just going to work, being bored out of my brain, coming home, talking to strange internet people. Also, I have a Twitter now, which is also kinda sad. You can see the latest tweets on the right ----->

Oh yeah, I started running, yet again. This time though, I have proper running shoes. I had to buy them in the children's section though :(

I had this dream. 3500 word stage 3 economics essay in 3 hours, to be precise. I'm quite annoyed, it's only been a month.

I also had a dream where I was living in some sort of futuristic wasteland and joining a gladiatorial arena to make my fortune. I think it's some sort of metaphor. Either that or a reminder that I haven't been playing Oblivion recently.

Been busy with life. Well, not busy exactly. I don't know any more. Life's been... interesting lately. So much for swearing off men for this year.

After reading the good news re: Claire and James on Facebook last night, I went to bed. I fell asleep, my alarm clock went off at around 7am, I turned it off and went back to sleep. I had a really weird dream that I was about to get married, and in my dream I was trying to get out of it because I didn't want to - I think I'd found someone else I wanted to marry. I was running around in a wedding dress panicking my ass off.

I think the guy was the one who was bugging me about being his "future wife" after three dates. "Huh? I don't remember hearing about this!", you say? Long story short - went out with an American exchange student for a week in Tokyo, it went quite well at the time, got back to NZ and I realised that we're not right for each other at all. He got a bit worked up via MSN talk, I cooled off, he's still kind of into me and it's kind of awkward. At any rate, I don't think he'll enjoy hearing that the idea of marrying him is nightmarish. But hey, I don't control my subconscious. If someone had a nightmare about marrying me, I'd laugh my ass off, personally.

It's kind of nice to have a reminder of how Serious Commitment-phobic I still am. Seems like most people go wrong underestimating that, though I suppose it's symptomatic of a lack of understanding of me as a whole. Anyway, moral of the story is that you guys should stop getting engaged - you'll keep giving me nightmares. And for god's sake don't have children, you'll scar me for life, heh.

I feel really bad. The inside of my bag spammed Abhijit's cellphone 20 times with blank text messages a few days ago. I made a blank contact called "aaa" that very day.

I need to write about what's happening. Stuff is happening, rest assured, I just don't know how to tell you all.

Should probably explain what I'm up to. I'm at Unitec now, doing a Japanese reading/writing course while spending the rest of my time working. Other than that my life is fairly empty, actually.

So far it's nice, in a low key sort of way, but I think it may become unbearable soon. I'm catching up on my reading now though, which is nice.

I had a weird dream last night - another one of those post-apocalyptic ones. Society collapsed and I was sheltering in a mansion in the countryside, possibly on an island. The mansion itself was slightly ruined, but generally in okay shape and there was a generator and water and food and so on. So I was there, but the former inhabitants were also there - a family, who had gone insane and were continuing to mutely go through their daily lives as though nothing had happened. I had to keep stopping them from doing stupid things like wasting electricity and so on because they didn't know it themselves. And then I woke up.

So I'm officially finished. Preliminary exam results are in, and I have an A in English 357: American Literature for Summer School. Provided there's not some sort of horrible mistake (I had to get 2 different waiver things for major/minor requirements, so hopefully Ndeva will be friendly with the graduation application), that should mean I'm free to graduate in May.

I'm rather pleased, actually. A good way to end the degree.

I'd been feeling pretty crap all week, with slight stomach pains on Monday and Tuesday, clutching a hot water bottle to my abdomen at home on Wednesday and Thursday, grinning and bearing Friday with the help of over the counter pain relief. My mother sprained her ankle on Thursday afternoon and needed my help and all that.

I woke up Saturday morning at around 5am in horrible pain, refilled my hot water bottle and went back to sleep, only to dream about someone stopping me from refilling my hot water bottle and me getting really pissed off at them. Which woke me up at 8:30am, again with the hot water bottle having cooled down, and I realised that unexplained abdominal pain down the right side that was getting worse was perhaps not a good thing to ignore. Unfortunately my mother had sprained her ankle, so I ruined Michael's lazy Saturday morning by calling him up to get him to take me to the doctor. I went, did the usual prodding in the abdomen and so on, then got referred on to do blood tests. Did the blood tests, bought groceries and went home (still in pain). Since the diagnosis was "either there's something really wrong with you or you're just having a really bad period" I figured the blood test would show something, but I was still kind of surprised when I got a call from the doctor at around 3:30pm, telling me that my blood tests had come back positive for some sort of infection and that I'd been referred to the Emergency Department at Auckland Hospital.

So I called up Alex and got her to take me and my mother (still on crutches) to the ED. Got there and had a tube stuck in my right arm, more blood taken, and another couple of doctors prod me and ask me my history. I suppose my current job has really helped me in the sense that I've become rather good at giving medical history and symptoms. I'm lying there in a horrible hospital gown with a tube stuck in my arm and my mother's sitting there with her crutches beside the chair, slowly panicking. Basically, they didn't know what was wrong with me because the abdomen is a busy place, full of all sorts of parts that could go horribly wrong. The laundry list of potential problems given to me went gall bladder, appendix, ovaries, kidney. And they wouldn't know for sure until the ultrasound the following day.

By that point I wasn't in huge amounts of pain for the most part, and I wasn't nauseous or anything. I had some food, the nurse came by every few hours to take my blood pressure, pulse and temperature and I read Enduring Love by Ian McEwan and hated it ("Get to the goddamn point stupid man! Shut up you bitch! I don't give a shit about your mid-life crisis old man!"). Had a bit of a scary moment where I was sleeping on my side and when I woke up, the pain had returned. Panadeine put paid to that though.

So Sunday came along, my mother came in and they gave her a wheelchair this time round. The irony of being visited in hospital by someone in a wheelchair has not escaped me. Some more doctors came in and prodded me some more, with a bit of "Cough. Did that hurt?" My ultrasound was late morning, and I was wheeled down there. The ultrasound showed that my appendix wasn't about to rupture. Which is good. It also showed that I have some sort of mass near my right ovary which is probably the cause of the problems.

They didn't know what this meant, so they brought in a registrar from the gynaecology ward and I again got the poking/prodding school of diagnosis. It got even better too, with an intra-uterine version of the standard "I'll prod you and you tell me if it hurts" technique. But it turns out I either have a cervix of steel or there isn't anything too drastically wrong, so since I didn't seem in too much pain, they sent me home with some antibiotics. They still don't quite know exactly what's wrong with me, of course. It could be something fixable with the antibiotics, or it could be an ovarian cyst, or there are a few other slightly scary seeming options, and there are a few test results and stuff to come through over the next day or so which will give an indication as to what the next course of action is. I'm meant to be getting some information about follow up appointments and the such soon.

But yeah, I'm not dying and I should still be able to start my equivalent of the Wiggin family in the book Ender's Game. I'm still in a bit of pain so I'm taking things easy (no running, no work till Wednesday at the earliest), but it's not so bad now. So yeah, a really eventful weekend, in a really shitty way. I had no internet for over 24 hours, apart from my phone! *shudder*

The Bad Movie Billboard - was Bride Wars (starring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, 12% on RottenTomatoes.com), is now Valkyrie, Tom Cruise's vanity Nazi project.

I saw a douchebag driving a Dodge Ram today. I was surprised, because I didn't think you could get them in NZ, but there it was - a right hand drive monstrosity with a custom numberplate pulling into the daycare centre I pass on my daily run. The guy driving it was wearing a cap and had tattoos. I suddenly realised with a sense of tremendous clarity that this man has an very small penis. We can only hope that the rest of them make it that easy to spot.

Speaking of running, it's been going quite well, I think. Route is being extended all the time, and endurance and so on are going up. Plus I do hills! Serious hills! Surely hills count for more!

A few nights ago, I dreamt that I had a Nintendo DS, and that I was happily playing it and anticipating the new games coming out on it, and so on. In fact, the impression remained with me after I woke up, so it took me a few hours to realise that I didn't in fact own a DS. It was all rather weird...

I suppose you could analyse it by saying that hey, just because it's popular and lacks a bit of processing power in comparison to others doesn't mean I should immediately dismiss it, and that maybe it'll be fun to play with and I shouldn't let my preconceptions drive me away from it. It being fun and casual isn't necessarily a bad thing, it means it can treat me better and we can still enjoy our time together. It's not all about technical specs or anything, it's just about enjoyment and compatibility and all that, and as long as I overlook the occasionally crappy graphics maybe I can learn to appreciate it. Maybe I'm overthinking this a bit.

I also dreamt that the reason I've been feeling more comfortable in my own skin lately and more comfortable with photos and so on is not because of increased self-confidence but because secretly in my sleep over the past few years my mother had me undergoing plastic surgery (mostly face stuff like rhinoplasty and facelifts and so on). That was also kind of weird. Though I'm not sure which dream was stranger.

Speaking of photos though, I've been going through the photos of my cousin's wedding lately and I'm a bit disturbed at how much I look like my mother. I guess there would be worse ways to look at 50, but still. I don't like the feeling that it's all so... predestined.

Alright guys, here it is. My big statement of purpose for 2009. I came up with this fairly recently, actually, but once I started thinking about it, it all fell into place. There's been a lot leading up to this point, a lot of thinking and contemplation and so on, which is all terribly long and I won't elaborate it here. But now I have a purpose and motivation and all that, so you and your puny words will not stop me.

I have two goals for this year. Well, several secondary goals, but at the core there are two main ones.

1. To be in Tokyo, living in my own apartment with a living wage and to be able to afford a wedding present for my cousin when she gets married in September (yes, another one).
2. To be able to afford the Michelin Tokyo Restaurant guide for 2010, and to be able to use it properly by then.

There are a few smaller ones too - having a reading standard up to high school graduate level in Japanese by mid-year, to be standing in the same place at the stroke of midnight Dec 31st 2009 as I was standing Dec 31st 2008 (highly negotiable), to read Murakami Haruki's work untranslated, to finish all of the manga I have lying around at home, to do a proper internship, to stop wasting energy on men (yeah alright this one might not be going too well so far), to lose 5-10kg by the time I leave for Japan mostly via taking up jogging again (this one was a last minute addition... a damn painful addition, might I add).

What am I going to do? I'm going to start a career as an interpreter and move to Japan to do so. For now, the Plan says I'll stay over there indefinitely. It's something I've considered on and off throughout the years, and I've realised that I'd be damn good at it (not to mention it pays rather well), so I'm going to put the work in this year to achieve this.

So I'm doing things with myself this year. Big things. It feels good to finally have a direction.

Edit: Oh yeah, so if anyone wants somewhere to stay in Tokyo in the future, they're welcome to visit. Unless I get a shoebox apartment (possible).

In addition to the correct academic regalia, some graduands choose to wear clothing or garments of honour from their tradition such as a sari, korowai or ta'ovala. This is a welcome enrichment to the colour of the graduation ceremonies.

Being here has fucked up the languages in my dreams though. I had a dream a few weeks back where my mother had a crazy ex boyfriend in NZ who kept threatening to kill her via ham radio (in English). So I'd keep warning my mother (in Japanese), and she'd always dismiss me, and it ended with the crazy guy coming through our living room window with an axe (and then I woke up). Also, there was a dream where I met a cute blond guy whose Japanese sucked... no wait that happened in real life too.

I'm not huge on Christmas, apart from the whole receiving presents thing. Of course, you're welcome to give me presents. But New Years, that's important! Why, it's the start of a whole new year! It's a wiping clean of the slate, a new beginning, no more old shit!

So... I've been planning. I've been thinking a lot, these past few weeks actually. It's been facilitated with a lot of visits to museums and things that make you think (okay, I've been digressing a lot with thinking as to the nature of art - what makes art in fact art, and what makes good art good, questions of authorial/artistic? intent and so on... that whole stunt with "Francis Kaul" comes to mind too) as well as talking to some interesting people and going out and doing things a bit out of the ordinary for me. I've changed for it I think, and perhaps I'm not the person I was a month ago? Apart from knowing far more about art than I used to, that is.

But I think the grand unveiling of the plans for next year will have to wait - it's kinda long and I'm kinda tired. But I now have goals and direction and so on and so forth! I am a woman with a Plan. Also, enigmatic. But the past few entries have sort of been that.