Hmmm, what do I do now? You’ll be happy to know that I am actually doing laundry as we speak. Yes, the journal writing during laundry sessions have commenced. It makes sense actually. You are a little trapped doing laundry, so if I’m just sitting at home I should do something to occupy my time. That is cleaning (next), writing, reading, studying, or surfing the web.
My place is becoming more like my place every minute. Certainly it isn’t finished, but it has reached a livable condition. So now what do I do? Every minute up to now seems to have been consumed with either work (still really busy) or apartment stuff. I still have the apartment stuff but it is significantly less urgent than before.
My couch arrives today – so that means I’m done with the current big ticket items. I don’t really have any near term plans for more. I still have more things to do like lights and trash cans. Trash cans? What is so complicated about trash? Nagoya is ゴミã°ã‹ or crazy about trash. Here’s a little link. I have to separate everything and put it in a specially colored plastic bag. Then I put it in the special trash area of our building. In our “mail corner†there are all sorts of notes about how everyone is doing their trash incorrectly. The foreigners will get blamed but I’m trying my best. I’ve gotten rid of most my packing material but I still have lots of cardboard!
I’m a bit paralyzed by light purchases. It is a commitment thing. Once they are in, you don’t really change them. Somehow a light is more difficult than a couch!
I’m looking forward to more days where I can just hang out and wonder, “Hmmm, what should I do now.†Clearly I still have life support activities (grocery store, laundry, cleaning) that require my time but that happens anywhere. It just seems that here it takes about 10 times longer because I can’t really read anything. I’m going to go to the big supermarket near Nagoya Station today. At least that’s the plan. Since I bought a monthly train pass that includes Nagoya Station on my route, I can go there using my pass. The pass was expensive (about $180 for one month between my apartment and work – the equivalent of 19.2 days) and it isn’t really that economical. But since I have been working Saturdays and since my route includes Nagoya Station it could pay off in the end.
Today I hope to get laundry done, get to the grocery store, maybe buy a trash can or two, ponder lights, get my couch delivered, organize, and finally get the pictures off of my new camera and in to my computer. Maybe I’ll go to dinner with colleagues as well. That’s a full day!