August 2, 2004
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im actually reading the interpreter now. im flying through it too. goes to show you how bored i am. reading? me? im switching between travel books, the itnerpreter, food books, and japanese childrens and cooking shows. and sleep too. when i got home on sunday i had gotten about 3 hrs of crappy sleep on jenna`s kitchen floor and when i got home i went to sleep from about 1-7pm. got up had a snack then went to sleep for the night. til the next morning! that a lot of bored sleep right there. but tomorrow i will come into school for a bit of prep instead of just the internet. since i have my first pseudo class on the 6th where junior high kids come to see and english class. wow are they in for a treat! watch out. thank god ive taught drill. at least i m not completely clueless. i mean, i am, but still its nice to have something to fall back on.
so this is my PHONE NUMBER to those of you who dare to call. you need the country code and junk 088-672-4229. actually it might be 080 first, but i think that all of my area is 088 so that is 86% sure. so figure that out and if someone starts talking in japanese just say (soo-mee-ma-sen) and hang up. i have my own voice on the answering machine too so dont leave any weird messages around japan. (update: it is 088 672 4229, i DID correct it tho.)
CAR: i have a car in my driveway now. i cant drive it, but its there. i dont really want to drive it that much anyway. but i need to to get to one of my schools once a week. and now it turns out that the inspection might be due super soon and i have no info on any of that. so Aki KITAKARA to the rescue tomorrow. he is actually the husband of my supervisor, but he is really the only one who speaks english even tho she is an english teacher. i think that maybe more english will come out of her when she gets more comfortable, but she doesnt seem to understand me much either. just dandy.
ATM: i dont have much money. damn. why didnt i just bring more money? a good question. i was kind of in a freaked out state when i left. on account of the question of how i was going to get to where i needed to go to actually leave, so i didnt get to do the money related things that i wanted to because the banks closed while i was still in a daze on friday. oops. so i brought less than even the lowest amount that was quoted in any of the literature. wise. very wise of me. so i tried to go to the ATM today. the other JETs seemed to think that it would work fine. i went to the bank and asked about it...that is i tried. they tried. we all tried. then i said thanks, maybe later and bowed out of that situation. then i went to the post office next door. their ATM had an english option. SWEET. but the lady there stopped me from going ahead. which maybe was good, because maybe the machine would have eaten my card, but probably not. post offices are a lot like banks here. you can have an account and stuff. no one seemed to know what was going on there either. they were going to send me to the bank, but i managed to communicate that i already went there, so i left saying that i have a japanese teacher and ill come back later. i have a lot of literature saying how we can send money home, but none saying how ppl can/should send money to me. that s what i really need. MOMMY!
BANK: i mean, not that i have any money, but having bank account would be nice to receive the money when i do get paid. i seem to think that this should be taken care of already, but the KITAHARAs seem to think that i need my alien registration card first to open the account. that sucks because i dont get the for like 2 or 3 weeks. im looking into this.
SMOKE DETECTOR: so when i got to the apt, emily had left me a note that said that i need to replace the battery. i did but when i kept trying to put it in, the thing kept going off and freaking me out. then when her boy friend came by to drop off the car and keys, i told him about it and he just put the thing in no problem. it goes off at first, but stops when you plug it in properly. goes to show how many smoke detector batteries i ve changed. ...none. still none.
COOK: i cooked something for the first time today. whoa. besides boiling water i mean. i got some eggs and a little thing called a baby ham. it turned out to be more of a baby bologne but it still was a decent bfast. then i had to do all those dishes. im not doing that cooking thing for another while at least. ramen and jello or cookies..yummm. and onigiri. of which i figured out the tuna sort. its japanese for TUNA. TSUNA. ha. took me way too long to figure that out.
Comments (3)
Random props. Sounds like the reality of starting a life in a foreign country is hittin ya! Dont worry tho, we all went/go through it. Im finishing up my 3rd year on JET, and have fully enjoyed myself. Kinda dont wanna leave, but thats that. Unfortunately, you DO need your gaijin card to set up a bank account (and probably a hanko). Your BOE shoulda took you to get that bad boy the first week that you got there. Once you get the gaijin card then you can get the bank account, and cell phone, etc. Good luck!
you can get your bank account without your gaijin card. when you apply for your gaijin card you ask them for a copy of your application to get a gaijin card. they accept that. then whenever anyplace else wants your gaijin card you're like "here's my bank account" and then they are okay with no gaijin card.
I got a bank account at a bank without my gaijin card but have to wait for the card to open an account at the post office. Mostly, from what I understand, it's because you need your card in order to register your hanko and turn it into a 'jitsu-in' which just means you can use it to sign legal documents. My card only took 4 days, it sucks that yours will take 2 weeks. And honestly, I don't know if you can get away with showing a bank account instead of the card, my supervisor didn't let me try, oh well!
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