i'll never cease to be amazed at how much garbage i continue to let myself live with. when i moved out of my tiny room in the boathouse 3 years ago i filled up 6 bags of trash. nowadays it's no different. currently in my kitchen there are 5 full trashbags and the last trashday was last tuesday. i'm averaging a bag a day. ugh.

Tomorrow (Sunday) i have a shamisen concert, Monday i have an apartment check by my BOE, and Tuesday is The Jettison - so in order to preempt a panic attack/nosebleed, i'm trying my best to be mostly done moving tonight. procrastination is a disease i must learn to live with.

the thing is: i'm not only moving myself, i'm moving about 5 generations (10 years worth?) of JETs that have come before me in this apartment. As you're leaving a country you're quick to say "Aw, the next guy can use this..." and you stuff it in a closet with a sticky note on it that says "could be useful!" - but the truth is, they it's not. most of the stuff i'm throwing away is stuff that i've never used and only looked but once. you know, things like solid gold Faberge eggs.

it's a bit of mess. but i should be pretty organized when my boxes hit the states... they're fairly categorical. so when i'm trying to figure stuff out stateside, at least my current posessions will be labeled and stuffed in boxes accordingly.

what's left to do? pack my 700+ lomographics. Compy-chan and his friends. and various other junk. i packed my bags last night. preflight. zero hour. nine a.m.

Today I went to Osaka for a job interview... And the crowd simultaneously gasps and says "WTF!?" It's all fact. Of course, I'll explain more.

My friends who want me to stay in japan graciously set up an interview for me with the Assistant Manager (we will call him "Jicho"**) at a music store in Osaka. Doing what? Well that's a question I also had, and went to investigate. I guess I'll come out and say right now, that I'm not opposed to the idea of living and working in Japan longterm. Suprise! Nihon daisuki.

After a hang up at the Immigration Bureau, I showed up to the interview late... without a resume... because my memory stick wouldn't fit into my Board of Ed's computers (I later went out and bought a newer smaller USB stick). The resume also had a lot of uncorrected Japanese errors in it. So it's a good thing I didn't give it to them anyways.

I got to the music store all sweaty and red from the sun, legs aching, and I asked to meet the Jicho. I was instructed to go up to the third floor. There a sharp looking Jicho and his counterpart Bucho pull me into a soundproof room with two $100,000 grand pianos. Both men are clad in ties (and short sleeve button ups) and me in a shirt that has missed a few wash cycles because all of my nice shirts I realized this morning have some sort of defect on them - cursed curry.

Bucho and Jicho are great fellows. Interested in me, but from the beginning it seems impossible that they'd be able to guarantee me a job. We talk over the logistics of visas and financial guarantee, etc. Neither party is certain of how it works. He explains that the company model at the store is: Part-timer -> Contracted -> Full-fledged Employee with benefits, etc.

This meaning that if I were to get a job at this place, I'd be a normal part-time worker making 990yen/hr in the 6th most expensive city in the world - after taxes, at this point Jicho did some fancy calculator work, I'd be netting about $200/week. Rent in Osaka for a small apartment starts at about $700. Not a profitable career move, to say the least.

With that the interview ended, but information and plesantries were exchanged. Job aside, I was really happy to have this interview conducted all in Japanese. It was great practice for my future. Experience points.

Well that's all. Still unemployed. This'll be my last interview story (unless a really interesting one comes up). Take care folks.

** "Jicho" in Japanese sounds a lot more masculine than "Assistant Manager", which gives me flashbacks to McDonald's and my 18 year old shift managers.

last night i coded my first ruby on rails application. it was just a simple tutorial from Apple, but it blew my mind. i made a few typos and ruined myself a couple times, but all in all, i was able to set up the application and get it working.

then i managed to jack it up. woo hoo! and that's what kept me up until 3 in the morning.

PROBLEM#1) i am unable to export it. i downloaded the Capistrano gem and tried to "deploy" my app. but all i got was error after error. i clearly don't understand this routine.

PROBLEM#2) user authenification. i installed LoginGenerator and this is where my program hit a critical error. Logins seem to be my Achilles' heel. Trent at Paravel Design has been waiting on some sort of user login/admin function from me for a long long time. i can never seem to get it working properly. i'd like to know what i'm doing wrong. i followed the directions to the "T", but still getting fatal errors.

if anyone knows of/wants to form a circle of geeks that want to sit around and chat code, let me know, i'm interested. we could use SubEthaEdit (if you have a mac). my interests: ruby, mysql, php, css. apply by email.

today i packed up my desk and all my belongings (including but not limited to: a miniature ranch, a toenail clipper, and an Engrish coffee cup) and left my school. the morning was a long goodbye and my students are incredible, as well as my teachers. if the Japanese would let me, the Japanologist, break them down into sweeping generalizations put them in my petry dish, i'd be amazed at the way this group people say goodbye. lots of alcohol, and lots of stories, lots of hopes and flattery, lots of gifts, lots of love.

the other night, my teachers began asking me what other teachers i like. and when i didn't fork over an adequate answer, they asked me about "cute students". ahem. bizzaro-world.

lots of lasts this week. now it's onto cleaning my house. exporting my life. and playing videogames. quite the mini-vacation.

it still hasn't set it. it feels like i'm just starting my life here. i don't think i realize that my job is now over. my yearning for the morning meetings will drive me to get up early. swell ocean of tears. open arms of thanks. maybe i'll wake up tomorrow and realize that my life is going to change radically in the next 11days.

the only thing i did realize today is that i get kind of uncomfortable when i can see a wife beater undershirt through a too thin, almost transparent, button up collar shirt.

"cry... laugh..."

why is it that two weeks before i leave japan there is suddenly mountain dew in every vending machine in the tri-county area?!? seriously. i'm kind of pissed off. you've got some explaining to do. i'm calling you out. on the weblog. take that.