the slacking.

I just looked at my blog and noticed that I haven't posted for over a week. That's just not acceptable.

Sooooo...things have been going pretty well, for the most part. I'm still struggling to put all of the pieces together financially, but that situation should be decidedly improving in the weeks and months ahead. I picked up another part time job...it's temporary, but it should lead to other work that I hope will be as lucrative.

About the job: as of Friday, I'm teaching English to elementary public school kids. It's actually really interesting. The English part of the equation is, of course, ridiculously easy. The difficult part is putting yourself in front of 25 curious pairs of eyes and subjecting yourself to their scrutiny. Children can sense fear, of course...fortunately, I've handled much worse things than a classroom full of curious Japanese children in recent times. They seem to like me and they seem genuinely interested in American culture. I like kids, generally, so that probably helps...they can sense that, as well.

The teachers and staff are super friendly and my Japanese will definitely be getting a workout in the mornings and in between classes, which is what I want. No complaints on that, although, obviously, mastering a new language is a constant battle. I probably shouldn't use "mastering" and "my Japanese" in the same paragraph, however. It's going to take a while. On the other hand, I do seem to be assimilating new words a lot faster and more easily than I was when I first got here.

Socially, things are moving right along. Last night I went out to Shibuya with some Italian researcher friends, as well as my friends Hanako and Eri, and we went and caught a couple of bands and a DJ and did some dancing. It was fun, although, of course, I missed my last fucking train and stayed up all night in Shibuya. I met some interesting people, but would have preferred to go to bed.

Side note: you know, it's weird that I almost never went dancing while I was with Maria. Amusingly, she saw me joke-dancing spastically at a party one time, and assumed that I am generally dance-floor retarded, but the reality is that I can hoof it surprisingly well for a guy of my height, thickness, and generally lumberjack-ish appearance. People have actually made a number of comments over the years, especially more recently, and I usually don't quite know how to handle them, which sometimes leads to some social awkwardness. I'll work on it. In any case, I suppose that it's possible that over a decade of DJing might give you a good sense of rhythm.

Speaking of which, I'll be DJing in Daikanyama in 2 weekends. It's a trendy neighborhood in central Tokyo. Naturally, it's not a paid gig, but my hope is that it will lead to some of them. Or even just *more* unpaid gigs. I'll get free drinks out of the deal, so it could be worse, I supppose. Actually, there are a lot...a LOT...of opportunities in general in the expat network. We are a well-paid, fairly talented bunch of people, for the most part.

Anyway. Time for bed.