Warning: This post features a blatant and egregious abuse of parentheses. It was also meant to be posted a few weeks ago, but let’s not sit around crying over that.
Hello, mon freres. Have you ever had one of those days where things are happening and you’re sitting there thinking, “I have no idea what is going on, but I’m pretty sure I need to pretend I do”? That’s been my week. I’ve been a bit mentally and emotionally exhausted, so I apologize (as per usual) for any boring/ungrammatical turns this post takes.
Let’s start with my usual array of excuses about why I haven’t updated recently. I’m going to blame it on the mass amounts of Skype calls I’ve been getting recently. Of course the real reason is that I’m incredibly lazy, but just go with my excuse for a bit. This past weekend saw 3 calls in a row, which made me feel extremely popular (as well as exhausted), and over the last few weeks, the gamut of huge topics has been gone over–engagements, pregnancies, break-ups. While these things are great (well, obviously not the break-up after 10 years; that sucks), this kind of falls under the topic of “Things that are kind of a bummer that you experience when you are an ex-pat” (again, I know I need to work on these titles. One day, maybe I will)(No, I won’t).
In these events, it’s impossible to really be there for the people you care about, in good times or bad times, and the limited view of the screen makes you aware of the separation. There is something about Skype that makes information that you receive during it feel second hand (or maybe it’s just me; perhaps I shouldn’t generalize). Things you took for granted that you would be a part of are suddenly happening without you. The biggest event was my sister’s engagement (my older sister Jenni’s, obviously; if Tara was getting married at 17, that would be a major problem worth an entire post)(also, saying things like that make me awkwardly aware of the fact that my sisters are 15 years apart). Last weekend, she bought her dress at a wedding expo; I had always kind of imagined being a part of that kind of thing, and it made me a bit sad not to be there for it and just see the picture through email (Even though I would probably hate going to a wedding expo, because I hate going to expos in general, but also because I know next to nothing about weddings. However, if a woman in her late 20s admits something like this, it’s outright blasphemy, and the said-woman faces excommunication in the mental collective of all those present).
Now, this will seem like a random segue, but in my mind it makes sense, which means that in real life it is actually random and strange. Anyways. The topic of what I’m going to do next (geographically speaking) has been coming up a lot; mostly by my mom, or from people trying to figure out how long they have to sneak into my apartment for a free place to stay (Erin, I’m looking at you. And will soon be looking at you not via computer screen). People innocently ask, “When are you coming home?”- this is one of my least favorite questions I get asked as an ex-pat. Unless it’s my mother, I know the person asking is usually just making casual conversation, but for whatever reason, it feels like an accusation, and I always give a horribly inept answer like, “Mmmmidunno, maybe sometime?” It makes it sound like I haven’t really thought about it, when in reality, I THINK ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME. The combination of 1. getting easily attached to places and 2. hating saying goodbye to anyone/place/thing makes me feel crazy anxious about leaving places (Seriously, I could make a photo album titled, “Pictures of Jillian crying because she’s leaving somewhere”).
I kept extending my contract at AEON because I couldn’t face leaving, and it really was just so much easier to stay. But then people started leaving, and the job started getting monotonous, and I had hardly seen (and in some cases, talked) to my family/friends for almost 2 years. (Also, Japanese is difficult. This will come up later). So overall, I don’t really want to leave places. Now, the case “do I stay or do I go” in England is more of a sticky wicket than the usual one because of the visa issue. For Japan, it was easy – get a job, get a free visa, live in Japan for as long as 3 years without thinking of it again. Not so in England.
Let me lay it on straight for you (or at least as straight as possible for a weird and windy situation). For those who don’t remember the fun process I went through last time to get a visa, here’s a reminder; the short story is that with $650 and the University of Bristol behind me, I was awarded a Tier 4 student visa. This expires next January. On this visa, I am allowed to work up to 20 hours during term time. I’m not sure what kind of restrictions this puts on me when I technically finish my term in September, but even if I can work full time on this visa, I can only do so until January unless I switch to a Tier 2 visa. Visas in the UK work on a point system; you need to have certain qualifications to get the points required for a visa. Apparently, it is a bit easier to switch from a Tier 4 to a Tier 2 than it is to get a Tier 2 out of nothing (which really isn’t saying much). The basic point is that I would have to be offered a job with a salary of £20,300 to be able to get visa sponsorship. Now the basic problem is that to get a job, most companies require you to have a visa already (do you see the catch-22 here?).
If it was completely up to me, I would stay in the UK longer (especially considering I’m basically doing a master’s so I can live in the UK), which is what I’m trying to do. I can’t apply to work for a community college until I physically get my degree anyway, which puts that option on the back-burner until Fall 2015. Awhile back, when I first learned of these complications, I just thought, “Screw it, I’ll just take do another short-term contract in Japan with my old company Westgate so I can start paying off my loans.” I re-applied; they were happy; easy peasy. But then my sister got engaged, and chose to have her wedding in November. Westgate is upfront with their no time off policy, and even if I wasn’t a co-Maid of Honor, I wouldn’t want to make a four day trip from Japan to California (again). So I’ve turned down that offer, and will stay in the UK until January at least. However, you Californians can rejoice over that 10 day or so interlude I am making in November. To my friends in Japan…本当にごめんなさい。も一度会うまでさみしいですね。(And I apologize for how horrible my Japanese has become. And also my English.)
INTERMISSION, or Pictures of Jillian crying because she’s leaving somewhere.
Here are pictures from three different trips to Japan (ages 18, 22, and 25):
[First picture is with my host family, and even if you can’t see it, my host mom was definitely shedding stoic tears. The middle picture shows Yuki Danza crying way more than I am, which is really not surprising. The last picture is with one of my favorite students from AEON. This is probably horrible, but I think one of the most gratifying feelings is when someone cries because I am leaving.]
ON TO HAPPIER THINGS! otherwise known as Tales of Chantry Court
This week has been a Gravitron of emotions (people like to say rollercoaster of emotions, which I guess would be accurate if describing going through happy and sad feelings. I’m making the bold claim that a Gravitron of emotions is when all your feelings are negative and whirling about in such an intense way the emotional centrifugal force pulls them to your stomach and makes you want to throw up). But today, I awoke to something that made the grey skies of England just a little bit sunnier (not literally, though that would be a great machine that we should capitalize on). But first, some back story.
Last night, while sitting in the kitchen, a flatmate I’ll call Oil told me a story concerning a flatmate I’ll call Bosh. I think I can say confidently that I’ve chosen solid pseudonyms that will prove impossible to decode. So, Bosh was about to finish his finals, and was anticipating a well-deserved night out. Now, as the bodybuilder of the flat, Bosh has a reputation for being pretty successful with the ladies. So Oil, the intellectual of the group, was joking with him about it, asking if he was going to pick up a strumpet on his night out. This set Oil and our other flatmate Hannah into giggles, and Bosh laughed a bit, though the lights behind the eyes were a bit dim at this point. Oil could see the lack of comprehension, so he continued (hoping Bosh would work the meaning out for himself), saying he could imagine Bosh “coming down park street with a strumpet over [his] shoulder.”
Again more laughs, but this time less from Bosh, with him finally saying, “Yeah, but, like…what’s a strumpet?”
Oil says, “Surely you, of all people, must know what a strumpet is.”
“Yeah, but, no,” Bosh replies, a look of puzzlement over what some might refer to as a muscular face (if muscular faces are a thing).
“Come on. What would you be carrying down Park Street?”
Slowly, that little light of comprehension began to grow stronger in those baby blues, and in a moment of enlightenment, Bosh says, “Do you mean one of those cones?”
I don’t know what’s better; that Bosh thought a strumpet was a traffic cone, or that he thought Oil imagined him walking down Park Street at 4 in the morning with one over his shoulder. So I laughed at the story and tucked it into the corner of my heart for safe keeping. In the end, though, Bosh had the last laugh, as this was the sight that met everyone the next morning:
Next!
(Due to my inability to just sit down and commit to a post, my blog seem to talk about a perpetual yesterday that is in fact most likely spread out over a week. But really, the time when it happened doesn’t matter, so I’ll just stick to yesterday.)
So, yesterday I came home to find two roommates–let’s call one Bosh again, and the other Mincent–having a lively conversation in the kitchen. Due to my very quick deduction skills, I quickly ascertained that the convo, while lively, was perhaps not a good-natured one. Bosh had a vein throbbing in his forehead with that scary smile he saves for times not meant for smiles, accusing Mincent of getting huge tomato stains on his kitchen towl; Mincent was frozen in a shrugging “I have no idea what you’re referring to” posture, vehemently denying the accusations whilst standing in front of a heaping plate of cooked tomatoes. I decided to sneak out of the kitchen to let them solve this mystery for themselves, but when I got to my room, I realized I left my keys on the kitchen counter. I had to sneak back in, the argument seemingly unchanged from my last visit, before sneaking out again. The moral of this story is that I am not very good at sneaking, because I witch-laugh the entire time I’m doing it.
Japanese Lesson of the Week, or Why Japanese is Ridiculous to Learn:
I told my Japanese flatmate that he could have some free cupcakes, pointing to the foil wrapped package on the table. His reply:
“Yes, I know. I saw. OH! Free cupcakes?? I thought you said Furikake–do you know furikake?” (I say I did, but forgot). “Do you know furu? It means kind of…to swing. And Kake is from kakeru, to put in; yeah, yeah, you know. So it means ‘things you put on rice’.”
Oh, of course. I should have guessed.
(There are a lot of double parentheses in this post, which makes me wonder if I actually have multiple personalties(which is a great excuse for why my work has been so horrible lately; who can concentrate with all these voices interjecting?)(No, dummy, it’s a really sad excuse, go sit in the corner and feel ashamed.))
whereisjillian 