Accidentally found myself in a karaoke/yakitori bar for dinner, with the interesting accompanying clientele and harried old lady running the place. I managed to escape having had no alcohol, and having only sung one song. I consider this a success.

I made it! And I’ve been here almost a week!

Otherwise things have been kind of dull. I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to something, but I don’t know if it’s the bedding I acquired from my host mother (I did buy myself a new cotton futon today, however), my rug that’s been in the basement for two years (and appears to be shedding pretty impressively), or just spring in Japan. I’m waiting for my fridge and washer to show up, as well as my 外国人登録証明書 so I can get myself a bank account and a cell phone. I need more furniture, as I’m currently limited to a bed, but I’m indecisive and the places with furniture are a little further than I’d like to go. I really mostly just want a chest of drawers for folded clothes and a table and chairs for eating and desking. I’m sure I could find things that would be fine if I were willing to spend thousands of dollars, but I’m not sure that I’m ready for that. Perhaps I’ll find something somewhere. And although I’d be okay with used furniture, finding it around here is pretty tricky.

My job starts on Wednesday, so I’ve had some time to sit around and do nothing. I’ve solved the problem by going out shopping, buying various and sundry things, most of which are needed, but some of which are not. I have a lot less money now than I did before, which makes me uneasy, but I think I’m just used to being somewhat miserly with my money (for no good reason, really), and that this spending is fine and reasonable, especially since most of it has been on household goods.

I also found a Scottish Country Dance group near(ish)by, and went and had a fun evening. I felt very tall! The floor was pretty slippery though, I almost fell a couple times. The teacher felt bad for not offering me a ride from the station (I had called ahead of time to make sure that the group was in fact still in existance and still meeting), but gave me a ride back, so it worked out okay for me! I even got some compliments, which felt nice.

Tomorrow I’ll probably try to go back to my host family’s place and spend some time with them, and maybe they will help more with the furniture search. But now I should go find myself some dinner before it gets to be too late. I can’t wait until I have a fridge and can make my own food! Most of the restaurants I run into around here seem pretty short on the vegetable side of things, and I could use some veggies.

I have a visa now! This is exciting, as it means that I am done with paperwork (apart from the stuff that will happen when I get there: employment contract, apartment lease, bank things). But now I just have to get to packing and getting rid of things and all that horrible mess. I’m not really looking forward to it, but there it is. I have less than two weeks left here now, and it still hasn’t really settled in.

I think the first thing I need to do is really clean my room, get it actually honestly clean. Then I’ll move out my table for space and work on sorting through clothes and junk. I may end up being bad and boxing stuff up and leaving them with people around town (I’ve received multiple offers of storage space), but I don’t really want to leave too much stuff. If I can manage without it for a couple years, it sort of seems not worth keeping. There are some exceptions, of course (artwork).  I know I’ll be getting rid of a reasonable amount of clothes and other sundry items though. I’ll probably end up taking a bunch of it to goodwill or something of the sort.

The problem with me is getting started. I’m pretty awful at it most of the time, and getting that momentum to get going is the most difficult and most important part for getting anything done. Hopefully I can do the cleaning part today.