Thoughts

By 5 am this coming morning, Mi Amor will be finally finished with the graduate school rite of passage--comprehensive exams. It has consumed him for the last ten days, and both of us can shift our mode of frame reference from "When the exams are done..." to "When applications for PhD programs are finally in."

My goal for today involved completing my essay to my top school. I have written three drafts, only one of which is remotely decent, if 300 words too long. I am horrified that this school does not want writing samples--do they think they will get a good sample of that from 700 words? Do they think they will actually read the horrible crap I scribbled down for the GRE? Anyway, suffice it to say, "I have not made my goal today." We finally got our water bill--bimonthly and they come a month late--, and I spent two hours trying to figure out where to pay it by the deadline (today.) Then on the advice of my love, I took a nap--I have been fighting a bad cold and some other weird condition, and I think he wasn't amused when I said, "I think I will follow in the footsteps of my ancestors... and only go the doctor if things get worse."

This weekend had a lot of firsts for me. I have spent my time in Japan trying not to make scenes, trying to blend in to the background as much as humanly possible... That ended last night as I went out with my coworkers in costume. We got stares, laughter, and some people even managed to ignore us successfully. On a dare, I marched up to some college students and told them that tomorrow was Halloween, and if they said "Trick or treat" to me in English, I would give them candy. They did, and they got candy. Miyuki got that one on video.

Oh yeah. And we were all married women. I have never had so much fun in a group like that, maybe that is the first such group I have ever been a part of! I laughed until I had tears running down my cheeks, I watched a little old Japanese lady say "Eh!?" in surprise when she found out that my coworker/boss dressed as Fat Superman was actually female, I drank guava juice, I ate tacos, I sang Strawberry Chips with limited success, I listened to the yakiniku yodeling song done with amazing skill. I am empowered by this group of strong women. It is really exhilarating.