Deep Breath

It's been a momentous five weeks, which may very well account for the incredible delay in updates recently. I've been SUPER busy, and here's why.
First, I quit my job. It's been two and a half years at that joint and it was about time to go. My decision was greatly aided by the fact that I was offered a much better job working for the city. Better how? Well, for starters, the pay is better by about $500 a month. If that wasn't enough, its a Monday thru Friday gig...no more Saturdays...and ALL the Japanese national holidays paid and OFF. Second, no sales. Working at GEOS involved a lot of pressure to sell, and sell up. Books, new contracts, homestays...whatever. The idea is to play on the students insecurities and exploit their dreams to get into their wallets...it's a nasty business. Third, the working days are from morning to afternoon...done while the sun is still up. Getting moving at 6:30 am is gonna be tough though. Start tomorrow!
Changing jobs also means changing apartments...which may very well prove more traumatic than the job thing. The old place went with the job, so I had to get the heck out last weekend. It's amazing how much useless junk one person can accumulate in 30 short months. After I culled most of the crap, I was still left with an impressive mountain of incredibly necessary posessions, and no where to put it. After much bean counting and hair pulling, K and I decided to move me into her place and move her back into the old homestead. Its gonna be a little uncomfortable for the next couple of months, but it was the option that made by far the most sense. I'm gonna have a long commute, and she's gonna have a curfew, but we found a place for us, and will move in there in February.
There's also been wedding planning stuff going down, but that whole thing has kind of taken on a life and momentum all of its own. Things happen and decisions are made that neither K nor I are fully aware of until much later...Exciting.
Also, we took a trip to the American Consulate down in Osaka yesterday to get started on the marriage paperwork. Turns out I need an affidavit of eligibility to marry...a form to prove that I am of age and truly really single. So we went, and I filed, and paid $30, and they stamped the paper and we are all set. They didn't check a damn thing except that my signature matched...so if you're american and interested in bigamy, Japan is an option if you find mormons too preachy.
So to sum up, job stress, new job stress, packing stress, moving stress, red tape stress...ick. I feel pretty good about the whole mess though. Yay!