Apartment Life

I know I am long overdue on posting pictures of my apartment. My apologies. However, there are some things about living here that don't show up in pictures. Just little things. First there is the man that lives... somewhere.. near me, who likes to sing. I don't know what it is he sings, but the wobbly old man voice makes me think he is a fan of enka (look it up on YouTube). He only sings at night and only for a relatively short period of time. It occurred to me that he might be a singing-in-the-shower kind of guy. I wonder if he knows all of his neighbors are in his shower with him.

When my evening soundtrack is not old-man warbling, there's also the cat fights. First time I heard the cats in neighborhood crying, I thought it was one seriously upset (human) baby. Except it just kept going on and on, one continues painful wail, and I was wondering, why the heck nobody was taking care of this baby? The animal finally had a catch in its breath long enough for me to identify it. Gods, I've never heard a cat make a sound like that. It really sounded human. Now it is not so much the crying I hear, but occasional cat fights. I've never heard a cat fight before either, but man... there must be some seriously unhappy cats living in this neighborhood. Their bark must be bigger than their bite or there would be nothing left.

Winter is starting to sneak up on us. In the interest of keeping costs down as much as possible, I have resisted using my heaters. However, now that it is consistently 52 degrees in my apartment every evening, I have given in somewhat. I pamper myself with a little space heater in the living room, where I spend most of my time. It heats the small room up to about 65 or so, which is just fine for me. However, going to sleep and getting up in the morning is still a painfully chilly dash, as I don't put the heater in there. I have a big fluffy down comforter that, with some socks on, keeps me warm. A month ago I laughed at my friend Mark, who is from London, for searching for a hot water bottle. We had a long discussion on the differences between American and British conveniences (did you know they don't use pot holders?). I'm not laughing anymore. I think I will put it on my shopping list for next time I go to the mall.

It seems like this month has flown by. I was just at the hyaku-en shop ($ store) tonight and saw that they have quite a bit of Christmas stuff out. I even found some icicle lights (for 100 yen!) ! I want to get some blue ones and hang them along the wall of my little living room. It will be kind of like my freshman year of college, lol.

I can't believe we are almost to December. I am really starting to get bummed about Christmas. Even if the religious significance is lost to me, it is still a pretty deeply ingrained holiday/tradition. The idea of getting up on Christmas morning, ALONE with NO tree, NO stocking, NO presents, NO cinnamon rolls... and then having to go to WORK! Ugh. I haven't had any homesickness at all since I have been here, but I think I am going to be really depressed on December 25th. Send me some love, ok? I think I will make some little gifts of some kind to take to work with me, give myself something nice to focus on/look forward to.

In the mean time, Thanksgiving is almost here. I am attempting to make some pumpkin pie with the canned pumpkin my mother was kind enough to bring me. There actually IS a Thanksgiving party for JETs next Friday (so I will actually be celebrating the same day as all of you back home! ha ha) so, fortunately, it is one holiday I wont have to miss out on.

I'm gonna go fight my not-so-easy-bake oven now.

Cheers,

just Baer