Then and Now 53 - Chased
Time: Mid-2007, single and at the hostel.
Olivia was one of many girls who messaged my internet profile, and when I found the time, we met up at the main station. She didn't send a picture, so it took a while for her and I to find each other and start talking.
She was just barely entering college and had an innocent, somewhat naive outlook on life, and I would have considered her a candidate for dating... if it weren't for her weight. Standing just over five feet tall, and weighing just about what I weighed then, I didn't find her physically attractive at all. But she seemed like a great friend to mutually bounce ideas and language off of, and I wanted to see some local attractions and have a bite to eat with her; you know, show her a good time.
We started by going to the underground mall under the train station, which was a path with stores lined up on both sides. The mall went between a few different train stops for those who wanted to take a peaceful stroll to their destination while checking out a few stores. After turning only a few corners, and before even entering the shopping area, Olivia and I came across a musician in the corner, playing some music on the flute. He had his flute box open at his feet for donations, and a music sheet on a stand in front of him. I thought the music sounded beautiful and otherworldly, but as we walked by him, Olivia turned to me and pretended to play the flute like he did. I smiled nervously, even as I thought it was a bit rude, and motioned for us to move on.
As we walked, we spoke in the local language, because her English wasn't very good. She told me about hanging out with another foreigner a short time before, one who had rented a limo to take her around the city. They talked for a while until the man looked into her eyes and tried to kiss her, at which point Olivia told him she wasn't interested and left the car.
By that point, I wasn't surprised at all by the way foreign men acted here. I told Olivia that I had little respect for someone who came to another country and treated it like a brothel, and that people should be trying to get to know each other for at least a few days before taking things further. She agreed wholeheartedly, and I could almost hear her heart thudding as we continued on, like she thought she had finally found a catch. I just said it to be honest, though.
We walked through the underground mall for a while until we came to one of the eastern stops, and we rode an escalator to the top. We saw a poster with an elephant on it on the way up, and she said that it was her favorite animal. Up to that point, I had never thought of it as anything but a tough and proud beast, but the picture was pretty cute. Soon, we came up onto the street and walked past a gated school, covered in the shade of trees, then continued down the street, talking on the way.
Things get pretty hazy at this point, and all I can remember are swirls of images: walking past a park, talking about her going to college soon at a place in the mountains and the fact that her family was rich, just a couple of things here and there.
My memory picks up again when we came to a monstrous, horrible intersection that went in no less than six different directions, with confusing traffic lights placed in every direction. We stood on the southwest side facing northeast, and there was a little car dealership to our left. The sun was beating down heavily on us, and I noticed Olivia getting pretty sweaty and uncomfortable, so I knew it was time for us to start heading back. So, we crossed a horrendous trio of streets through three traffic lights, and came back towards the street that led between my hostel and the junction station to the east.
As we got to the busy intersection outside the hostel, Olivia looked like she was having trouble breathing, and she asked if we could take a taxi to the station. I smiled and encouraged her to keep walking, because it was only about a half mile away, and we could have been there in just ten or so minutes. She agreed with another smile, and we started our walk up the road. I had to wait up for her to sit down and catch her breath four or five times on the way, but I didn't mind; I admired her tenacity in continuing the walk over there, and I remembered being that out of shape when I first got to the country. When we finally got to the station, she looked happier, like she knew she had accomplished something, however minor it was. We said goodbye, and I headed back to the hostel.
Olivia ended up making several calls to me throughout my time as a single man, and would hardly ever try to speak English. Most of the time I understood her, but sometimes, we just couldn't communicate at all. The calls started getting more numerous as time went on, even three or four times in one day. In emails with my mom, I told her about some of the many things I was up to, including this day and the calls. She ended up telling my brother, who wrote back, "So... I hear you have a new 'friend.'"
Olivia and I met three more times: once was for a quick lunch, where she had cheese fries and I had some fruit. Another was a bank trip with her mom one night because they were in the neighborhood while I was out and about, and her mom's hand was bandaged from where she had been bitten trying to stop two dogs from attacking each other on the street. I admired her bravery.
The next and final time, Olivia met up with me outside of the hostel for a few minutes and gave me a present: it was a handmade wooden carriage, put together with carefully placed glue. I knew at this point that I needed to do something. When we got to a store, I opened my wallet to take out some money to pay for a drink, and slyly made sure that I kept it open so she could see a picture of Sammi, when I thought I still had a chance with her. Olivia asked who she was, and I said she was my girlfriend. Nothing showed on Olivia's face, and I felt relieved, like I had only imagined her wanting to date me, and that I hadn't let her down. I thanked her for the gift, then went back to the hostel to give it to the boss there, because it was a bit too bulky for me to carry around without a fixed address.
A few days later, I got a call from Olivia at 2 or 3 in the morning in the local language, asking me what I was up to. I was a bit annoyed at being contacted so late, so after a quick conversation, I hung up and texted, "Please don't call me so late, you scared my girlfriend."
A few minutes later, she texted back, "Fine! I won't talk to you anymore!" I recognized that symptom of Borderline style behavior immediately; I had been in that position when I was younger, on both the giving and receiving ends.
I never heard from her again. I felt bad friend-zoning this girl because of her weight, but that and a bad attitude are my two no-gos when it comes to a relationship, because both aspects of a person usually show self-control issues. The final text I got should have been proof enough of this. But I still hope I didn't hurt her too bad when she stopped talking to me; I did try my best to be good friends with her.
This was the first time in my life that I had ever been chased by a girl, and I was playing the part of every woman who had rejected me back in high school and college for being a loser. I certainly didn't feel happy having to be the one to reject someone at that time, but at least, this experience was a clear showing of how far in life I had come, and other opportunities that could have been in store for me if I had continued to be unmarried.
As for today...
I woke up at 7:30.
I went to work by train, and played video games on the way.
I taught students.
I came home by train, and played video games on the way.
I ate lunch.
I hung up wet laundry.
I surfed the net.
I went to work.
I taught students.
I came home.
I ate dinner.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I watched internet movies with my son.
I slept.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Then and Now 52 - Odds and Ends 7
Then and Now 52 - Odds and Ends 7
Time: Before I got married.
For the sake of this Then and Now, I'm going to refer to my wife as my girlfriend.
A few months after I started my job, I had to go to some work training with a few people from the school. I wasn't looking forward to it, knowing how companies love to overcomplicate and micromanage everything about themselves, and especially when I had already taught for so long and knew exactly what they were going to explain. I got to go with my co-worker Natalie, and she took me over there on her bike. At first I held on to her belly, because I was unconsciously mimicking my ex-girlfriend back in America doing the same with me. But when I realized that I was putting my hands in a danger zone (and acting really feminine), I quickly yanked my hands back, put them on the back of the bike, and apologized. She was cool about it.
We drove through many, many streets on our way to the training hall. I remember going under a freeway overpass, over a very long bridge over a sparkling river with high-rise buildings a few blocks from its banks, and between the shining windows of a thousand office buildings. When we got to the training area, Natalie parked, and we got a quick bite to eat at a sandwich shop, where I got a meatball sub. We talked for a while about work and life, then we went to the training hall: a huge building surrounded by a rolling fence, like it was the UN or something.
Soon after we entered, the training started. I spent the whole time doodling on my handout, and pretending to listen as the speakers endlessly repeated themselves and explained things that I had mastered years before. The only thing I took away from the two hours I was in there was treating an English sentence like a train, where the capital letter in the front was like the engine, and drawing this picture for beginning English students to learn capitalization more quickly.
Hours later, the godawful training was done, and Natalie and I took a walk around an outdoor market across the street. There was a video game shop there, a place that she shopped at before, and she surprisingly told me that she was into Guitar Hero. She had to leave soon enough and I didn't stay too long, but I used that little tidbit of info to give her one of my guitar controllers for her birthday later. Horribly enough, before I gave it to her, she was using a regular controller to play the game.
-----
I had just arrived in the main terminal of the main station, and I saw a huge commotion there. There were people everywhere: both locals and foreigners from every country imagineable all grouped together in hundreds of groups with dozens of people in each one. I let myself get carried away listening to others' conversations, one after the other, as I walked through the throng of people. Some languages I could understand, others not at all.
One source of all this popularity was just outside, at a huge fair being held in front of the main station. There were booths lined up one after the other in the central courtyard of the station, sitting between the station itself and the multi-lane road across the way. Walking up and down the aisles between the stands, I enjoyed the sights of many different kinds of clothes and DVDs, the smells of a multitude of sweet and breaded treats, and the sounds of hundreds of people enjoying themselves on that hot day.
I was still saving money at that point so I didn't buy anything, but I still had a friend to meet that day, so I headed back into the station to meet up with her and enjoy another day abroad.
-----
I mentioned this place briefly in my Vacation post, but I'll go into more depth here. I was wandering around the main station when I found this place: a combination public garden and interactive museum with old barracks and houses within. It was about two or three blocks away from the station, and past a tunnel that led to underground parking under the station, and the garden/museum sat on a city block surrounded on all sides by roads. The place was also surrounded on almost every side by a stylized wall with small, curved cuts in the stone to allow looks inside. Welcoming visitors at the entrance was a huge statue of one of the country's heroes, smiling broadly.
Going past what looked like a small guard room, I entered the place and found a miniature scene of country life. There were two mini lakes surrounded by a stone path, and they were split up by a bridge between them. In the lakes swam large and colorful fish, and as I walked around the lakes, they seemed to be following me and waiting for bread to be tossed their way. I took a few pictures of the place, standing between or behind trees to find perfect views of the peaceful area.
I left shortly after, and went a few blocks past the garden house so I could wander around the shopping area. I found a DVD store with a ton of movies sitting on shelves with tons of locals around, and I came back to buy "Batman Begins" for my girlfriend just a few months later, as she had never seen it. It was probably a bad gift for a girl, but she was extremely happy to receive it back then.
-----
I'll never get back those two lost weeks at my bud's aunt's place, just like I'll never get my life as a young single man back, but at least those lost weeks served as a counterpoint to the great life I had quickly made for myself. Those weeks were a way of contrasting that best time of my life by comparing it to the lazy depression that defined my early adulthood, the same lazy depression that almost consumed me again when I first went abroad. Shortly after I decided to never be that kind of loser again, I quickly found my life improving a hundred fold in just a few days.
I already talked about the construction walk to the mall and the long walk with my friend after this critical turning point, which were longer experiences, in Then and Now 2 and 10. But this one was just a quick piece of fun that I had after I decided to be happy.
It was a hot day, and I decided to take a walk by the ocean to get some sea spray and ocean wind in my face to cool down. My bud decided not to come, so I went alone. The sea was relaxing and calm, and I saw a few other people walking on the beach and flying kites as I stepped on the warm sand in my sandals. After I left the beach, I turned left onto a street and walked in some random direction, and passed a park to find a collection of outdoor fruit stalls.
The bosses were really nice, but I'm glad they didn't talk to me, because I was barely twenty or thirty pages into memorizing the dictionary, so unless their conversations involved aardvarks or ants, I wouldn't have been able to respond. After that, I walked down some more narrow streets and past a bunch of fenced-off houses, until I found the main road that led back to my bud's aunt's place.
-----
One day of traveling and meeting friends all around the main city, I was absolutely dog tired. I could hardly stand, the world seemed a bit fuzzy, and I was sweating pretty badly in the heat. But I still had another person to meet that night: a girl that I had met on the internet and scheduled a 5:00 meet-up with. I was honestly feeling too tired to go out with her, but I had made a promise to her, so I absolutely wasn't going to cancel, regardless of how I felt.
I was in a train station with a lot of advertisements for classical music concerts and ballets going on in the main city, and it was soon apparent as to why: the station was connected to an underground concert hall. I had a quick blast of euphoria there: I thought to myself that I could go to one of those concerts in just another month or two, when my finances were up. That blast of euphoria also got me pumped to meet my new friend, and I quickly found the strength to meet up with her.
It turns out that there was no need. After I got to the top of the station's escalator and had waited for about five minutes, my new friend called me and said she couldn't make it. She apologized a lot and said we would talk again someday, but she never followed through. I was relieved, but a little disappointed, so I went out of the station to take a quick look around the area to finish up the day.
The road was busy and there were a couple of buildings quieting down in the fading light of the day, and while I was out there and still sweating, it started to quietly drizzle. It looked like the plans I had for my new friend and I would have been ruined anyway, and the rain helped solo me to cool down after a long day of travel. Soon enough, I went back to the subway to take a car home.
As for today...
I woke up at 8:00.
I played video games.
My wife and son woke up, so I turned off the game.
I did a puzzle with my son.
I watched TV.
I ate lunch.
I took a nap.
I woke up.
I went to work by train, and played video games on the way.
I taught students.
I came home by train, and played video games on the way.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away dry clothes.
I started a load of laundry.
I showered my son.
He fell asleep.
I played video games.
I slept.
Time: Before I got married.
For the sake of this Then and Now, I'm going to refer to my wife as my girlfriend.
A few months after I started my job, I had to go to some work training with a few people from the school. I wasn't looking forward to it, knowing how companies love to overcomplicate and micromanage everything about themselves, and especially when I had already taught for so long and knew exactly what they were going to explain. I got to go with my co-worker Natalie, and she took me over there on her bike. At first I held on to her belly, because I was unconsciously mimicking my ex-girlfriend back in America doing the same with me. But when I realized that I was putting my hands in a danger zone (and acting really feminine), I quickly yanked my hands back, put them on the back of the bike, and apologized. She was cool about it.
We drove through many, many streets on our way to the training hall. I remember going under a freeway overpass, over a very long bridge over a sparkling river with high-rise buildings a few blocks from its banks, and between the shining windows of a thousand office buildings. When we got to the training area, Natalie parked, and we got a quick bite to eat at a sandwich shop, where I got a meatball sub. We talked for a while about work and life, then we went to the training hall: a huge building surrounded by a rolling fence, like it was the UN or something.
Soon after we entered, the training started. I spent the whole time doodling on my handout, and pretending to listen as the speakers endlessly repeated themselves and explained things that I had mastered years before. The only thing I took away from the two hours I was in there was treating an English sentence like a train, where the capital letter in the front was like the engine, and drawing this picture for beginning English students to learn capitalization more quickly.
Hours later, the godawful training was done, and Natalie and I took a walk around an outdoor market across the street. There was a video game shop there, a place that she shopped at before, and she surprisingly told me that she was into Guitar Hero. She had to leave soon enough and I didn't stay too long, but I used that little tidbit of info to give her one of my guitar controllers for her birthday later. Horribly enough, before I gave it to her, she was using a regular controller to play the game.
-----
I had just arrived in the main terminal of the main station, and I saw a huge commotion there. There were people everywhere: both locals and foreigners from every country imagineable all grouped together in hundreds of groups with dozens of people in each one. I let myself get carried away listening to others' conversations, one after the other, as I walked through the throng of people. Some languages I could understand, others not at all.
One source of all this popularity was just outside, at a huge fair being held in front of the main station. There were booths lined up one after the other in the central courtyard of the station, sitting between the station itself and the multi-lane road across the way. Walking up and down the aisles between the stands, I enjoyed the sights of many different kinds of clothes and DVDs, the smells of a multitude of sweet and breaded treats, and the sounds of hundreds of people enjoying themselves on that hot day.
I was still saving money at that point so I didn't buy anything, but I still had a friend to meet that day, so I headed back into the station to meet up with her and enjoy another day abroad.
-----
I mentioned this place briefly in my Vacation post, but I'll go into more depth here. I was wandering around the main station when I found this place: a combination public garden and interactive museum with old barracks and houses within. It was about two or three blocks away from the station, and past a tunnel that led to underground parking under the station, and the garden/museum sat on a city block surrounded on all sides by roads. The place was also surrounded on almost every side by a stylized wall with small, curved cuts in the stone to allow looks inside. Welcoming visitors at the entrance was a huge statue of one of the country's heroes, smiling broadly.
Going past what looked like a small guard room, I entered the place and found a miniature scene of country life. There were two mini lakes surrounded by a stone path, and they were split up by a bridge between them. In the lakes swam large and colorful fish, and as I walked around the lakes, they seemed to be following me and waiting for bread to be tossed their way. I took a few pictures of the place, standing between or behind trees to find perfect views of the peaceful area.
I left shortly after, and went a few blocks past the garden house so I could wander around the shopping area. I found a DVD store with a ton of movies sitting on shelves with tons of locals around, and I came back to buy "Batman Begins" for my girlfriend just a few months later, as she had never seen it. It was probably a bad gift for a girl, but she was extremely happy to receive it back then.
-----
I'll never get back those two lost weeks at my bud's aunt's place, just like I'll never get my life as a young single man back, but at least those lost weeks served as a counterpoint to the great life I had quickly made for myself. Those weeks were a way of contrasting that best time of my life by comparing it to the lazy depression that defined my early adulthood, the same lazy depression that almost consumed me again when I first went abroad. Shortly after I decided to never be that kind of loser again, I quickly found my life improving a hundred fold in just a few days.
I already talked about the construction walk to the mall and the long walk with my friend after this critical turning point, which were longer experiences, in Then and Now 2 and 10. But this one was just a quick piece of fun that I had after I decided to be happy.
It was a hot day, and I decided to take a walk by the ocean to get some sea spray and ocean wind in my face to cool down. My bud decided not to come, so I went alone. The sea was relaxing and calm, and I saw a few other people walking on the beach and flying kites as I stepped on the warm sand in my sandals. After I left the beach, I turned left onto a street and walked in some random direction, and passed a park to find a collection of outdoor fruit stalls.
The bosses were really nice, but I'm glad they didn't talk to me, because I was barely twenty or thirty pages into memorizing the dictionary, so unless their conversations involved aardvarks or ants, I wouldn't have been able to respond. After that, I walked down some more narrow streets and past a bunch of fenced-off houses, until I found the main road that led back to my bud's aunt's place.
-----
One day of traveling and meeting friends all around the main city, I was absolutely dog tired. I could hardly stand, the world seemed a bit fuzzy, and I was sweating pretty badly in the heat. But I still had another person to meet that night: a girl that I had met on the internet and scheduled a 5:00 meet-up with. I was honestly feeling too tired to go out with her, but I had made a promise to her, so I absolutely wasn't going to cancel, regardless of how I felt.
I was in a train station with a lot of advertisements for classical music concerts and ballets going on in the main city, and it was soon apparent as to why: the station was connected to an underground concert hall. I had a quick blast of euphoria there: I thought to myself that I could go to one of those concerts in just another month or two, when my finances were up. That blast of euphoria also got me pumped to meet my new friend, and I quickly found the strength to meet up with her.
It turns out that there was no need. After I got to the top of the station's escalator and had waited for about five minutes, my new friend called me and said she couldn't make it. She apologized a lot and said we would talk again someday, but she never followed through. I was relieved, but a little disappointed, so I went out of the station to take a quick look around the area to finish up the day.
The road was busy and there were a couple of buildings quieting down in the fading light of the day, and while I was out there and still sweating, it started to quietly drizzle. It looked like the plans I had for my new friend and I would have been ruined anyway, and the rain helped solo me to cool down after a long day of travel. Soon enough, I went back to the subway to take a car home.
As for today...
I woke up at 8:00.
I played video games.
My wife and son woke up, so I turned off the game.
I did a puzzle with my son.
I watched TV.
I ate lunch.
I took a nap.
I woke up.
I went to work by train, and played video games on the way.
I taught students.
I came home by train, and played video games on the way.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away dry clothes.
I started a load of laundry.
I showered my son.
He fell asleep.
I played video games.
I slept.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Last fight
I've had some difficulty losing weight over the last three or four years. I've never been obese or anything, but I still needed to shed some weight: a year ago it was thirty pounds that I needed to drop, and now, it's around twenty. I realized that the biggest problem was that my wife kept feeding me high calorie food almost every morning, and even when I asked her to switch me over to vegetable drinks or something else, she would keep cooking for me.
At the start of this month, I just decided to tell her to not cook anything for me for a few months, and that I would take $100 off of her monthly payments from me (my food budget) while I got back down to a good weight. It worked very well for the first two weeks of this month, and I lost almost ten of the last pounds I wanted to lose, but then my wife started cooking for me again.
Today, she asked me for more money this month, $60, citing the fact that she had made food for me a few times. I said that I was already giving her over $100 for her Christmas shopping, so she should make do with what she had. She went quiet for a moment, then said that she felt uncomfortable, that a family shouldn't be quibbling over specific amounts of money like that. She was, of course, completely ignoring her own hypocrisy in bringing this issue of $60 up in the first place. I locked my eyes onto her like cutting lasers, and spoke deeply and strongly:
"You can't pay for everything with $1200 a month? For the last four years, I've given you over $1200 a month to pay for nothing but food, clothes and insurance, and that still isn't enough?"
"..."
"I paid my way back at my apartment with $700 a month, and that included rent, bills, taxes, food, everything. Why is it that you need to spend almost twice as much for just food and insurance?"
"I don't know."
"Over $1000 a month, every month, for four years. Just one month I give you $1000 exactly, and you can't pay. What are you spending it on? Considering that you seemed real happy to make this out to be my fault in the first place. What are you spending it on?"
She counted up all the costs, and came up over $1000 short, so she started adding in things that I pay.
"No! I pay the bills, I pay the taxes, and I pay our son's college fees. You pay your mom and our rent with your salary. That leaves $1200 I give you for food, insurance and clothes. What are you spending it on? What have you been buying, every month, for four years?"
She tried to change the subject and say that I had to pay her more the previous years because she tutored, and she paid the bills with that money.
"That has nothing to do with what we're talking about! And by the way, I still pay you the same amount of money every month that I did back then, even though I pay the bills now! So what have you spent $40 a day on, every day, for the last four years? I get barely $3 a day of my money to spend on gas and food. I wish I could spend $40 a day!! So what are you spending it on?!" I demanded.
She cited our son's milk, about $100 a month, and toiletries, barely $50.
"That still leaves over $1000! What are you spending it on?!" I roared.
She got quiet, and then came over to the Angry Chair to do some calculations. I went back to watching TV until she stopped writing and went back to the floor to wrap up Christmas presents. I took a quick look through the checkbook, which she religiously writes in for thirty minutes a day, implying that she should know exactly where all the money is going. She stopped $800 short, and she didn't explain any further.
I hate acting like a blasted ape. But I have no choice: when I'm nice to my wife, she presses her advantage and treats me like garbage. When I try to reason with her, she gives me the silent treatment for hours on end, then explodes later. It's only when I'm forceful after she is completely wrong that she backs down. And does this compare at all to what my life was like before I got married?
My wife is an obstacle, in every sense of the word. She stands in my way on everything: money, emotional support, my sex life, she even blocks doorways with her enormous girth. Everything I do in life has to be done around or through her. When I tried to treat her like a princess for the past four years, hoping she would understand just how much she gets from me as her husband, guess what? She started acting like a princess. And she never listened to me when I asked her to stop treating me badly or acting badly to our son. It wasn't until I started treating her like a wife that she began to settle down on the drama.
I want to treat my wife like my friend, as I did when we were dating, but the permanent and draining institution of marriage led her to be a fat, demanding shrew when I tried to be nice. She basically got tenure the second I signed on the dotted line for this "job," and nothing she does will ever get her fired, so the only way I have to keep her from acting up is to make her as uncomfortable as possible when she tries to start a fight. It's like raising a second child.
So now, I have to be someone I don't like being, just to keep the stereotype that is my fat, hairy, frigid, irritable and money sucking wife in check. And with our son relying on us to stay together and provide a good home for him, I have nowhere to go, and I still have over 14 years to wait until I'm free.
At the start of this month, I just decided to tell her to not cook anything for me for a few months, and that I would take $100 off of her monthly payments from me (my food budget) while I got back down to a good weight. It worked very well for the first two weeks of this month, and I lost almost ten of the last pounds I wanted to lose, but then my wife started cooking for me again.
Today, she asked me for more money this month, $60, citing the fact that she had made food for me a few times. I said that I was already giving her over $100 for her Christmas shopping, so she should make do with what she had. She went quiet for a moment, then said that she felt uncomfortable, that a family shouldn't be quibbling over specific amounts of money like that. She was, of course, completely ignoring her own hypocrisy in bringing this issue of $60 up in the first place. I locked my eyes onto her like cutting lasers, and spoke deeply and strongly:
"You can't pay for everything with $1200 a month? For the last four years, I've given you over $1200 a month to pay for nothing but food, clothes and insurance, and that still isn't enough?"
"..."
"I paid my way back at my apartment with $700 a month, and that included rent, bills, taxes, food, everything. Why is it that you need to spend almost twice as much for just food and insurance?"
"I don't know."
"Over $1000 a month, every month, for four years. Just one month I give you $1000 exactly, and you can't pay. What are you spending it on? Considering that you seemed real happy to make this out to be my fault in the first place. What are you spending it on?"
She counted up all the costs, and came up over $1000 short, so she started adding in things that I pay.
"No! I pay the bills, I pay the taxes, and I pay our son's college fees. You pay your mom and our rent with your salary. That leaves $1200 I give you for food, insurance and clothes. What are you spending it on? What have you been buying, every month, for four years?"
She tried to change the subject and say that I had to pay her more the previous years because she tutored, and she paid the bills with that money.
"That has nothing to do with what we're talking about! And by the way, I still pay you the same amount of money every month that I did back then, even though I pay the bills now! So what have you spent $40 a day on, every day, for the last four years? I get barely $3 a day of my money to spend on gas and food. I wish I could spend $40 a day!! So what are you spending it on?!" I demanded.
She cited our son's milk, about $100 a month, and toiletries, barely $50.
"That still leaves over $1000! What are you spending it on?!" I roared.
She got quiet, and then came over to the Angry Chair to do some calculations. I went back to watching TV until she stopped writing and went back to the floor to wrap up Christmas presents. I took a quick look through the checkbook, which she religiously writes in for thirty minutes a day, implying that she should know exactly where all the money is going. She stopped $800 short, and she didn't explain any further.
I hate acting like a blasted ape. But I have no choice: when I'm nice to my wife, she presses her advantage and treats me like garbage. When I try to reason with her, she gives me the silent treatment for hours on end, then explodes later. It's only when I'm forceful after she is completely wrong that she backs down. And does this compare at all to what my life was like before I got married?
My wife is an obstacle, in every sense of the word. She stands in my way on everything: money, emotional support, my sex life, she even blocks doorways with her enormous girth. Everything I do in life has to be done around or through her. When I tried to treat her like a princess for the past four years, hoping she would understand just how much she gets from me as her husband, guess what? She started acting like a princess. And she never listened to me when I asked her to stop treating me badly or acting badly to our son. It wasn't until I started treating her like a wife that she began to settle down on the drama.
I want to treat my wife like my friend, as I did when we were dating, but the permanent and draining institution of marriage led her to be a fat, demanding shrew when I tried to be nice. She basically got tenure the second I signed on the dotted line for this "job," and nothing she does will ever get her fired, so the only way I have to keep her from acting up is to make her as uncomfortable as possible when she tries to start a fight. It's like raising a second child.
So now, I have to be someone I don't like being, just to keep the stereotype that is my fat, hairy, frigid, irritable and money sucking wife in check. And with our son relying on us to stay together and provide a good home for him, I have nowhere to go, and I still have over 14 years to wait until I'm free.
Then and Now 51 - Christmas Shopping
Then and Now 51 - Christmas Shopping
Time: Late 2007, dating my wife.
For the sake of this Then and Now, I'm going to refer to my wife as my girlfriend.
So here's something absolutely new to me: not only was this the first time that I ever had to go Christmas shopping on my own, it was the very first time that I actually enjoyed myself at it.
I headed to the underground mall near the train station for my big shopping trip, and I wasn't feeling very up to it going in. I'm a typical guy: when I want something, I find the place with the lowest price, go directly there to get it, then get home as fast as possible. So the thought of getting presents for all of my family and friends that night seemed like a night ruined to me.
But when I got there, I began to feel happier to do it. This was Christmas of 2007, and in my entire life, I had never been richer. I think my net worth at that time was around $5000 from work and light living, and I hadn't taken my Christmas trip back to America yet, so I was living high off the hog. It felt good to live a life of plenty, and to be able to share that success with the people around me. I was in the underground market with a couple hundred dollars to spend, and began my search, store by store, for the best presents for everyone.
I came across my younger younger sister's present first at a little custom accessory shop: it was a little bracelet with her name written on the side. The shop had a front area with bins of accessories and a few machines (sewing and the like), and the boss was working in the back. She came out when she saw me, a nice lady in her 40s who spoke English rather well, and I chatted her up. We mixed our languages talking about my fun time in her country, my life back home, and the fact that she wanted to try living in America at some time in the future. She kept trying to introduce her daughter, who had come back from school, to me, but the daughter was too shy to say much.
After that, I found another store where I bought my girlfriend a cute little rabbit doll that was holding a carrot in its paws, because I liked to call her "Bunny" sometimes. Later, she removed one of the threads on the carrot so only one side was attached to the doll, and she used it as a "carrot gun" to playfully shoot me at my apartment when I stepped out of line. She loved it back then, but I don't know where it is now; it might be at her mom's house.
Next, I went to a cards and collectibles shop to get something for my stepdad, and found a huge box of Magic cards written in the local language. I never really liked the game because every time I played with him, it would take an hour for me to set my creatures up and one card for him to kill everything, but I thought it was a fun gift to give him. The store had a couple of cases of figurines and games, but the place smelled like funk, so I left as soon as I could.
For my mom, I went to the very end of the underground mall where there was a very literal tiled wall that stopped any further progress, and it had very little foot traffic. I felt sorry for the stores back there: one was an ice cream place, another was empty, and the last was a store that sold ceramic pottery. I bought a miniature smiling rabbit for my mom at the last one. The lady who ran the shop didn't speak any English, and she was pretty old, so I only complimented her on the beauty of her art pieces before I left.
I later went to a music shop to get some local rock music for my older younger sister, who is a huge music fan, and who loved the Ella Fitzgerald CD I bought for her a few years before.
For my grandma, I bought an angel doll that could be plugged in to light up, because I knew she liked collecting Christian-themed goodies.
At another game shop, I got a plush 1-UP from Super Mario Bros for my brother, seeing as how he rode a motorcycle and was going to Iraq back then. He loved it so much that he made it an ornament on his rear view mirror in his truck, and his friends asked me to get them some shrooms, too.
At the same store, I got a plush Donkey Kong for my best friend, because he and I were huge Kong fans back when we played Super Smash Bros on his N64.
Finally, I got a miniature Vash the Stampede figure for my other friend Oscar, but nothing for my bud, because I wanted to give him my collection of Resident Evil novels back home, as I knew he loved the series.
With everything bought, I went up and out of the underground mall and back onto the streets. The night was somewhat cold and the road was dark, but in front of me was a huge department store, towering in the darkness. I turned around and fished out the 1-UP, then took a picture of myself holding it, smiling happily as I headed home with my swag.
As for today...
I woke up at 6:00.
I played video games.
My wife and son woke up, so I turned off the game.
I played cars with my son.
I watched TV.
I went out to tutor students.
I came home.
I started a load of laundry.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I played video games with my son.
I hung up wet laundry.
I slept.
Time: Late 2007, dating my wife.
For the sake of this Then and Now, I'm going to refer to my wife as my girlfriend.
So here's something absolutely new to me: not only was this the first time that I ever had to go Christmas shopping on my own, it was the very first time that I actually enjoyed myself at it.
I headed to the underground mall near the train station for my big shopping trip, and I wasn't feeling very up to it going in. I'm a typical guy: when I want something, I find the place with the lowest price, go directly there to get it, then get home as fast as possible. So the thought of getting presents for all of my family and friends that night seemed like a night ruined to me.
But when I got there, I began to feel happier to do it. This was Christmas of 2007, and in my entire life, I had never been richer. I think my net worth at that time was around $5000 from work and light living, and I hadn't taken my Christmas trip back to America yet, so I was living high off the hog. It felt good to live a life of plenty, and to be able to share that success with the people around me. I was in the underground market with a couple hundred dollars to spend, and began my search, store by store, for the best presents for everyone.
I came across my younger younger sister's present first at a little custom accessory shop: it was a little bracelet with her name written on the side. The shop had a front area with bins of accessories and a few machines (sewing and the like), and the boss was working in the back. She came out when she saw me, a nice lady in her 40s who spoke English rather well, and I chatted her up. We mixed our languages talking about my fun time in her country, my life back home, and the fact that she wanted to try living in America at some time in the future. She kept trying to introduce her daughter, who had come back from school, to me, but the daughter was too shy to say much.
After that, I found another store where I bought my girlfriend a cute little rabbit doll that was holding a carrot in its paws, because I liked to call her "Bunny" sometimes. Later, she removed one of the threads on the carrot so only one side was attached to the doll, and she used it as a "carrot gun" to playfully shoot me at my apartment when I stepped out of line. She loved it back then, but I don't know where it is now; it might be at her mom's house.
Next, I went to a cards and collectibles shop to get something for my stepdad, and found a huge box of Magic cards written in the local language. I never really liked the game because every time I played with him, it would take an hour for me to set my creatures up and one card for him to kill everything, but I thought it was a fun gift to give him. The store had a couple of cases of figurines and games, but the place smelled like funk, so I left as soon as I could.
For my mom, I went to the very end of the underground mall where there was a very literal tiled wall that stopped any further progress, and it had very little foot traffic. I felt sorry for the stores back there: one was an ice cream place, another was empty, and the last was a store that sold ceramic pottery. I bought a miniature smiling rabbit for my mom at the last one. The lady who ran the shop didn't speak any English, and she was pretty old, so I only complimented her on the beauty of her art pieces before I left.
I later went to a music shop to get some local rock music for my older younger sister, who is a huge music fan, and who loved the Ella Fitzgerald CD I bought for her a few years before.
For my grandma, I bought an angel doll that could be plugged in to light up, because I knew she liked collecting Christian-themed goodies.
At another game shop, I got a plush 1-UP from Super Mario Bros for my brother, seeing as how he rode a motorcycle and was going to Iraq back then. He loved it so much that he made it an ornament on his rear view mirror in his truck, and his friends asked me to get them some shrooms, too.
At the same store, I got a plush Donkey Kong for my best friend, because he and I were huge Kong fans back when we played Super Smash Bros on his N64.
Finally, I got a miniature Vash the Stampede figure for my other friend Oscar, but nothing for my bud, because I wanted to give him my collection of Resident Evil novels back home, as I knew he loved the series.
With everything bought, I went up and out of the underground mall and back onto the streets. The night was somewhat cold and the road was dark, but in front of me was a huge department store, towering in the darkness. I turned around and fished out the 1-UP, then took a picture of myself holding it, smiling happily as I headed home with my swag.
As for today...
I woke up at 6:00.
I played video games.
My wife and son woke up, so I turned off the game.
I played cars with my son.
I watched TV.
I went out to tutor students.
I came home.
I started a load of laundry.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I played video games with my son.
I hung up wet laundry.
I slept.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Then and Now 50 - Tina Warms Up
Then and Now 50 - Tina Warms Up
Time: Mid-2007, single and at my apartment.
This was the first time I had with Tina after her apology email in Then and Now 39, where she needlessly said that she was sorry that she didn't speak up more often. When I met her on this day, the change in her wasn't night and day, but it was still significant. She and I met up in the train station, and she smiled brighter than I had seen her smile before. Together, we went to an underground mall which went several miles from one part of town to another.
One of the first things we went by was a man playing a violin in a corner, collecting some money from passerby. Beyond a little fountain, we came to the dancing kids area that I saw in Then and Now 16, but that day, Tina and I only saw some families resting by little fountains. We passed by several hundred stores down there, including a local video game shop, a kids' book store, a bunch of clothes stores and a pottery shop, talking all the way about life and fun we'd had in the past few weeks, until after about an hour, we popped out of the underground market and back onto the street.
Outside was a movie theater that played movies that had been out for a while, only at a discounted rate. There wasn't really anything I wanted to see back then, because I had already seen Harry Potter 5 back at my bud's aunt's place in Then and Now 24, but I made a note of the location for later.
Tina and I then went to lunch at a local restaurant. The door was open to the heat outside, but there were some fans inside keeping everyone cool. We got a table off to the middle-right, with a few people surrounding us in the front and back. I had some breaded meat, she had a simple bowl of soup, and we talked more openly than the times we spent together before.
Finally, after lunch, we walked around until we got kind of lost, and found ourselves alone in an alleyway with a couple of cozy houses around us. We sat down in front of someone's planter, and Tina pulled out a little book from her pocket to show me a trip she had taken with her friends. I was happy that she was finally opening up enough to share something more about herself.
The previous summer, she and several of her friends took a road trip to the other side of the country, where they stayed in one of her friend's vacation homes. She had a lot of pictures of this trip in her book. One was of her and her friends piling their junk into their friend's tiny car, another was of them all standing outside the cute little vacation house, and she also took several pictures of herself standing atop a cliff looking out on the ocean. I felt really happy at that moment, and not just because she was finally sharing with me. I felt that she, like I, was living her life happily with friends and journeys across the land, and really living life to the fullest. Her life was going as great as mine.
She showed me a couple dozen more photos, and recounted her experiences shopping and walking around in the beach town there, for a good thirty minutes. Unfortunately, she soon had to go, so we went back to the train station and said goodbye. I almost immediately met my next hang-out "date," but with the number of friends and acquaintances I had when I was single, I don't even remember her name.
As for today...
I woke up at 7:30.
I went to work by train, and played video games on the way.
I taught students.
I came home by train, and played video games on the way.
I ate lunch.
I drove to another school.
I taught students.
I came home.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away dry clothes.
I started a load of laundry.
I surfed the net.
I hung up wet laundry.
I slept.
Time: Mid-2007, single and at my apartment.
This was the first time I had with Tina after her apology email in Then and Now 39, where she needlessly said that she was sorry that she didn't speak up more often. When I met her on this day, the change in her wasn't night and day, but it was still significant. She and I met up in the train station, and she smiled brighter than I had seen her smile before. Together, we went to an underground mall which went several miles from one part of town to another.
One of the first things we went by was a man playing a violin in a corner, collecting some money from passerby. Beyond a little fountain, we came to the dancing kids area that I saw in Then and Now 16, but that day, Tina and I only saw some families resting by little fountains. We passed by several hundred stores down there, including a local video game shop, a kids' book store, a bunch of clothes stores and a pottery shop, talking all the way about life and fun we'd had in the past few weeks, until after about an hour, we popped out of the underground market and back onto the street.
Outside was a movie theater that played movies that had been out for a while, only at a discounted rate. There wasn't really anything I wanted to see back then, because I had already seen Harry Potter 5 back at my bud's aunt's place in Then and Now 24, but I made a note of the location for later.
Tina and I then went to lunch at a local restaurant. The door was open to the heat outside, but there were some fans inside keeping everyone cool. We got a table off to the middle-right, with a few people surrounding us in the front and back. I had some breaded meat, she had a simple bowl of soup, and we talked more openly than the times we spent together before.
Finally, after lunch, we walked around until we got kind of lost, and found ourselves alone in an alleyway with a couple of cozy houses around us. We sat down in front of someone's planter, and Tina pulled out a little book from her pocket to show me a trip she had taken with her friends. I was happy that she was finally opening up enough to share something more about herself.
The previous summer, she and several of her friends took a road trip to the other side of the country, where they stayed in one of her friend's vacation homes. She had a lot of pictures of this trip in her book. One was of her and her friends piling their junk into their friend's tiny car, another was of them all standing outside the cute little vacation house, and she also took several pictures of herself standing atop a cliff looking out on the ocean. I felt really happy at that moment, and not just because she was finally sharing with me. I felt that she, like I, was living her life happily with friends and journeys across the land, and really living life to the fullest. Her life was going as great as mine.
She showed me a couple dozen more photos, and recounted her experiences shopping and walking around in the beach town there, for a good thirty minutes. Unfortunately, she soon had to go, so we went back to the train station and said goodbye. I almost immediately met my next hang-out "date," but with the number of friends and acquaintances I had when I was single, I don't even remember her name.
As for today...
I woke up at 7:30.
I went to work by train, and played video games on the way.
I taught students.
I came home by train, and played video games on the way.
I ate lunch.
I drove to another school.
I taught students.
I came home.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away dry clothes.
I started a load of laundry.
I surfed the net.
I hung up wet laundry.
I slept.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Then and Now 49 - Rain Preserve
Then and Now 49 - Rain Preserve
Time: Mid-2007, single and at the hostel.
One day at the hostel, I was using my subway map to find random stops and places of interest, as I had done in Then and Now 18. One of the stops was a single stop that connected the two main lines, but there was nothing of importance written on the map. I assumed it was some kind of residential area and that it ferried a lot of people to the two mutually exclusive lines, but I had to go see it for myself before I could check it off the list.
I got to the station, and it was dead, absolutely dead. There were only maybe ten people, mostly parents and older people, and nobody was making a sound. The lights were kind of dim, too, making it seem like some kind of ghost station. I quietly stealth-footed out, with the tiny thuds of my shoes sending echoes off of the high ceiling, and I exited the station to the street above. Right as I came out, a little bit of drizzle started to come down from the grey sky above, but thankfully, it never got any heavier than that.
The street was very long, and there were few cars passing by. I was walking on the side of the street that had some non-descript buildings to my right, but to my left was a massive field of green that was surrounded by a wide fence. I walked for a short time until I came to a museum, and deciding to get my cultural fix for the day, I went inside.
The lady there told me in the local language that they would be closing soon and that I couldn't go in, but when I promised I would only take a few minutes, she let up and said I could look around. I smiled and thanked her, and as I was walking in, I asked if I had to pay anything. She said that because I didn't have much time left to look around, she would waive the fee. I smiled even broader and thanked her again.
It was very quiet there, too, simply because just about everyone had checked out. The museum was divided into about six floors, with each one carrying a different theme. I remember that one of the floors was an ancient history floor with some old pottery and stuff there, another was classic portraits of locals in traditional and modern clothes at work or play, and another was a collection of different kinds of tools and technology, and how they evolved as the country continued on through history.
The final floor, which I think was the sixth, was horrible. It was some kind of modern art gallery and absolutely nobody was up there, and I don't think it was because the museum was closing. Almost every piece up there was just flecks of paint on a white canvas, or absolutely blank (save for a single triangle or something in the middle), and other kinds of nonsense, done in five seconds "pieces" that had nothing of relevance to say. I went back downstairs seconds later.
I left the museum shortly after and headed across the street to a place where the buildings of that part of the city started to thin out. I came across a very high hedge that wound around a very wide city block, and wondering what was inside, I followed it until I found an opening. On the inside was another tall building with a roof that angled outwards, and with some kind of reflective paint on the walls. Beyond it was a very wide natural area, some kind of nature preserve or something. There was a little path that went around and through patches of trees, which many, many locals and their kids were walking on. And beyond the paths, just behind the strange building, was a very wide man-made lake with some ducks swimming in it.
I stood on the banks of that lake for a while, listening to the sound of the drizzle lightly hitting the ground around me, and watching the ripples it made in the peaceful lake. I couldn't help but smile.
After that point, my memory gets hazy. I remember walking down some busy streets and coming across a part of town that had something like five pet stores all on the same block, and one of them had a parrot chained to a bird stand outside, but otherwise, that's about all I remember of this fun trip.
As for today...
I woke up at 6:00.
I played video games.
My wife and son woke up, so I turned off the computer.
I watched TV.
I took my son out to get breakfast, then we went home.
I spent about three hours fruitlessly searching for my lost keys, and roughhoused with my son off and on.
I went to work by train, and played video games on the way.
I taught students.
I came home by train, and finished video games on the way.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away a mountain of dry clothes.
I played video games.
I slept.
Time: Mid-2007, single and at the hostel.
One day at the hostel, I was using my subway map to find random stops and places of interest, as I had done in Then and Now 18. One of the stops was a single stop that connected the two main lines, but there was nothing of importance written on the map. I assumed it was some kind of residential area and that it ferried a lot of people to the two mutually exclusive lines, but I had to go see it for myself before I could check it off the list.
I got to the station, and it was dead, absolutely dead. There were only maybe ten people, mostly parents and older people, and nobody was making a sound. The lights were kind of dim, too, making it seem like some kind of ghost station. I quietly stealth-footed out, with the tiny thuds of my shoes sending echoes off of the high ceiling, and I exited the station to the street above. Right as I came out, a little bit of drizzle started to come down from the grey sky above, but thankfully, it never got any heavier than that.
The street was very long, and there were few cars passing by. I was walking on the side of the street that had some non-descript buildings to my right, but to my left was a massive field of green that was surrounded by a wide fence. I walked for a short time until I came to a museum, and deciding to get my cultural fix for the day, I went inside.
The lady there told me in the local language that they would be closing soon and that I couldn't go in, but when I promised I would only take a few minutes, she let up and said I could look around. I smiled and thanked her, and as I was walking in, I asked if I had to pay anything. She said that because I didn't have much time left to look around, she would waive the fee. I smiled even broader and thanked her again.
It was very quiet there, too, simply because just about everyone had checked out. The museum was divided into about six floors, with each one carrying a different theme. I remember that one of the floors was an ancient history floor with some old pottery and stuff there, another was classic portraits of locals in traditional and modern clothes at work or play, and another was a collection of different kinds of tools and technology, and how they evolved as the country continued on through history.
The final floor, which I think was the sixth, was horrible. It was some kind of modern art gallery and absolutely nobody was up there, and I don't think it was because the museum was closing. Almost every piece up there was just flecks of paint on a white canvas, or absolutely blank (save for a single triangle or something in the middle), and other kinds of nonsense, done in five seconds "pieces" that had nothing of relevance to say. I went back downstairs seconds later.
I left the museum shortly after and headed across the street to a place where the buildings of that part of the city started to thin out. I came across a very high hedge that wound around a very wide city block, and wondering what was inside, I followed it until I found an opening. On the inside was another tall building with a roof that angled outwards, and with some kind of reflective paint on the walls. Beyond it was a very wide natural area, some kind of nature preserve or something. There was a little path that went around and through patches of trees, which many, many locals and their kids were walking on. And beyond the paths, just behind the strange building, was a very wide man-made lake with some ducks swimming in it.
I stood on the banks of that lake for a while, listening to the sound of the drizzle lightly hitting the ground around me, and watching the ripples it made in the peaceful lake. I couldn't help but smile.
After that point, my memory gets hazy. I remember walking down some busy streets and coming across a part of town that had something like five pet stores all on the same block, and one of them had a parrot chained to a bird stand outside, but otherwise, that's about all I remember of this fun trip.
As for today...
I woke up at 6:00.
I played video games.
My wife and son woke up, so I turned off the computer.
I watched TV.
I took my son out to get breakfast, then we went home.
I spent about three hours fruitlessly searching for my lost keys, and roughhoused with my son off and on.
I went to work by train, and played video games on the way.
I taught students.
I came home by train, and finished video games on the way.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away a mountain of dry clothes.
I played video games.
I slept.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Then and Now 48 - Road of Rock
Then and Now 48 - Road of Rock
Time: Mid-2007, at my bud's aunt's place.
When I first came here, I didn't have much besides my PSP and some clothes. I'm usually one to travel light, and I assumed that I could buy some stuff as time went on. Also, I wanted to wean myself off of video games at some point, so I only brought the PSP for the plane ride, and two Guitar Hero guitars so I could play with my bud, and maybe throw a party later. I didn't bring a PS2 because the one I used to use belonged to my family, and it was pretty broken anyway, so I planned to buy one here.
The PSP ended up getting used way too much as I went through my adjustment phase, but as I came out of it and set it aside, I still wanted to get a PS2, because my bud and I both loved Guitar Hero. It was the only game he ever came over to my house in America to play. So that day, the two of us headed out to find a video game store. His aunt told us that there was a shop about a twenty minute walk away, but because neither of us had walked the streets she was talking before, we got lost.
We headed under an overhang for a construction site and past some really big and busy streets on our way to the shop. There was a veritable maze of houses and businesses to our right and past the construction site, and to the left, we could see the bright waters of a river. After a few minutes, we stopped at a little shopping mall to ask directions.
Inside, there were maybe twenty or thirty stores. The mall was completely indoors, and every one of the stores was a cube between little walking paths that wound around them, or off to the side. All of the stores also had clear walls and dividers, so no matter where I was standing, I could look through one store and straight into another.
My bud went wandering on his own for a little bit, so I took the chance to peek in on some clothes stores. I also saw a card and miniature shop with a bunch of robot statues in the display, and even some pillows with pictures of girls on the pillowcases. After a bit, my bud and I met up again, and we found a metalworking shop. The boss didn't seem to weld or anything like that (or at least, I didn't see any welding equipment), but he did do engravings and other things.
He and my bud spoke in the local language for a while about where to find the game shop, and after getting directions, I used a very rough mix of poor local language and English to thank him and ask him about his store. He responded with his own language mix, but his English was a lot better. To thank him for his help, I paid for some dog tags with my name on them, and picked them up a week later. I still have the tags, the gift bag and the boss' namecard in my memories box.
So on my bud and I went to the game shop, which wasn't that far away. It was a lot smaller than I'm used to, and the boss was an older woman, so I was a bit surprised when I first came in. She was very professional, and allowed me to try out my copy of Guitar Hero and the guitar on her display model to see if it worked, and they did perfectly. In no time, I bought the system, and my bud and I were ready to rock.
On the way out, a pair of foreigners came in, a guy and a girl. I tried to say hello, but they both ignored me and went straight to the boss. I guess it was because they were both very overweight and feeling self-conscious or something. They asked the boss in English if she had a copy of Silent Hill 4. She didn't understand, so they had to pull out a picture and show her, but she didn't have it. Then, they left without a word. It was just another example of rude foreigners treating other expatriates like toxic waste, and not having the respect to learn the local language.
My bud and I were back at his aunt's house in no time, and we were rocking out that night. The volume had to be kind of low because we slept on the second floor between his aunt's business and bedroom, but it was still another great night in my single life.
As for today...
I woke up at 9:00.
I went to work.
I taught students.
I came home.
I prepared teaching lessons.
I roughhoused with my son.
I went to work.
I taught students.
I came home.
I ate dinner.
I started a load of laundry.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away dry clothes.
I surfed the net.
I hung up wet laundry.
I slept.
Time: Mid-2007, at my bud's aunt's place.
When I first came here, I didn't have much besides my PSP and some clothes. I'm usually one to travel light, and I assumed that I could buy some stuff as time went on. Also, I wanted to wean myself off of video games at some point, so I only brought the PSP for the plane ride, and two Guitar Hero guitars so I could play with my bud, and maybe throw a party later. I didn't bring a PS2 because the one I used to use belonged to my family, and it was pretty broken anyway, so I planned to buy one here.
The PSP ended up getting used way too much as I went through my adjustment phase, but as I came out of it and set it aside, I still wanted to get a PS2, because my bud and I both loved Guitar Hero. It was the only game he ever came over to my house in America to play. So that day, the two of us headed out to find a video game store. His aunt told us that there was a shop about a twenty minute walk away, but because neither of us had walked the streets she was talking before, we got lost.
We headed under an overhang for a construction site and past some really big and busy streets on our way to the shop. There was a veritable maze of houses and businesses to our right and past the construction site, and to the left, we could see the bright waters of a river. After a few minutes, we stopped at a little shopping mall to ask directions.
Inside, there were maybe twenty or thirty stores. The mall was completely indoors, and every one of the stores was a cube between little walking paths that wound around them, or off to the side. All of the stores also had clear walls and dividers, so no matter where I was standing, I could look through one store and straight into another.
My bud went wandering on his own for a little bit, so I took the chance to peek in on some clothes stores. I also saw a card and miniature shop with a bunch of robot statues in the display, and even some pillows with pictures of girls on the pillowcases. After a bit, my bud and I met up again, and we found a metalworking shop. The boss didn't seem to weld or anything like that (or at least, I didn't see any welding equipment), but he did do engravings and other things.
He and my bud spoke in the local language for a while about where to find the game shop, and after getting directions, I used a very rough mix of poor local language and English to thank him and ask him about his store. He responded with his own language mix, but his English was a lot better. To thank him for his help, I paid for some dog tags with my name on them, and picked them up a week later. I still have the tags, the gift bag and the boss' namecard in my memories box.
So on my bud and I went to the game shop, which wasn't that far away. It was a lot smaller than I'm used to, and the boss was an older woman, so I was a bit surprised when I first came in. She was very professional, and allowed me to try out my copy of Guitar Hero and the guitar on her display model to see if it worked, and they did perfectly. In no time, I bought the system, and my bud and I were ready to rock.
On the way out, a pair of foreigners came in, a guy and a girl. I tried to say hello, but they both ignored me and went straight to the boss. I guess it was because they were both very overweight and feeling self-conscious or something. They asked the boss in English if she had a copy of Silent Hill 4. She didn't understand, so they had to pull out a picture and show her, but she didn't have it. Then, they left without a word. It was just another example of rude foreigners treating other expatriates like toxic waste, and not having the respect to learn the local language.
My bud and I were back at his aunt's house in no time, and we were rocking out that night. The volume had to be kind of low because we slept on the second floor between his aunt's business and bedroom, but it was still another great night in my single life.
As for today...
I woke up at 9:00.
I went to work.
I taught students.
I came home.
I prepared teaching lessons.
I roughhoused with my son.
I went to work.
I taught students.
I came home.
I ate dinner.
I started a load of laundry.
I cleaned up the floor and table.
I folded and put away dry clothes.
I surfed the net.
I hung up wet laundry.
I slept.
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