cathartic repression

I apologize to you all whom I have not written and kept well-informed lately. I am deeply interested in your lives, because I know many wonderful things are happening to many wonderful people at this time, but I am absolutely consumed with every tiny and grandiose task assigned to me for this and every day. In short, I work like a dog (although I do not understand the cliché, because every dog I know is very lazy).

As is very common when I am feeling psychological duress, the external symptoms such as an extremely messy environment begin to manifest. I see the untidiness and I do not feel compelled to cope with it. This has managed to turn into an intimidating amount of laundry, dishes, recycling, and general clutter to attend to. Additionally, I am supposed to have my alien registration card by now, which I have yet to pick up from across the city. When I get that I am supposed to set up a cell phone account, which will take a hefty deposit. I doubt that I have the immediate cash available for such a thing, and hesitate to leap at spending more money for something only vaguely beneficial for the time being. Most certainly, I have made friends, and the ability to contact them and be reached by them would probably break the spell of isolation and withdrawal that has stayed with me all this month.

But the idea of spending almost everything I have left on a foreigner's deposit for a cancer-causing bit of gadgetry that would most likely serve as an obsessive distraction from what I really see/think/feel in my new geography...leaves me ambivalent.

Then, every time I decide to set up a morning where I might venture out early into the cold to brave to hoards of students and commuters and miscellaneous to be there and back before work begins, another meeting or ever-popular kindergarten class is scheduled last-minute, and I take a deep breath and do it just like everybody else.

I am not complaining. I am just so overworked and tired and, save for this past weekend, so very lonely, it seems like writing a dozen individual letters and emails to people to update them on my sad state of affairs further adds to the attention I feed to those troubles which, honestly, becomes incredibly boring. Then, unfortunately, I am also discouraged by the emails I did manage to scrounge up brain matter for that still go unanswered. So then I fail to respond to the ones I do get, because I'm achy inside and out.

I went to bed awfully late last night (it was actually 4am). I woke up at a reasonable time to get ready for work, but I did not get enough sleep. My alarm clock was set on the radio, and every nine minutes I heard really bizarre pieces of traditional Korean music. If you've never heard it, the instruments are unique, vocals are guttural, and the overall ensemble is very minimalist. My nasty habit of hitting snooze a number of times left me with the strangest dream soundtrack in a while. Also, I am getting really good at waking up half an hour or so before my alarm sounds, which is mainly an internal freak-out mechanism in case my alarm doesn't work...I'm absolutely terrified to miss work. Not to mention, how would anybody get a hold of me, save for knocking on my door? The potential humiliation of it all wakes me up at about 9:15am every single morning. I do not have faith in alarm clocks, as I have been burned far too many times.

I did set up Skype, however, and that has been quite an investment! Now I have both a webcam and a headset, and can even look at Yoshi when I talk to Toby! He's so cute because he doesn't have the depth perception to see me on the screen, and is baffled by my voice coming out of the speakers. He looks happy, though, and so does Toby.

Tonight I think I will go to bed early, because I just totally deserve it and my neighbors upstairs, whose child is permitted to jump and bound across the apartment until the wee hours of the morning (seriously), can kiss my butt. First, though, I think I will take a lovely hot bath.

Firster still, I will remark at something I am quite proud of. After being here a month, and having consumed the inescapable countless grams of carbohydrates in that said time, I have still managed to drop weight! Considering the scenario, where I walk nearly everywhere, have no less than 24 flights of stairs to combat on a daily basis, and basically only eat what and when I feel like cooking, it does actually make sense. So, to tally it up, since last January, I believe I have lost something to the effect of 40lbs, give or take. I actually do put a little extracurricular exercise in my routine some days, a little cardio, a little yoga, some pilates, but sparsely and not as much as I would like. But I feel proud of myself, despite being surrounded by nothing but petite, slender women, all my curvy-girl clothes fit just fine, and I might venture that my cumbersome bust line does create a bit of reciprocal jealousy.

Oh, it's bath time.