The · Life · of · Ty

-- Just vewy vewy busy. It's official I don't have a life.

The highlight of yesterday is that I could read a chapter in my university text book and not pass out on arrival. The good stuff is that my workout at the gym is going well, work is challenging (the good kind) and the people here are cool. There's a strike at the university so no assignments are due, which is a relief, but I am guessing the exams are going to be hard (because they are the only factor on our final grade).

A few non-related things: The new Firefox addition -- Personas -- is the coolest thing I have seen since Firefox itself. Really makes my browser pretty. I also liked Startrek very much and would like to see it again (saw it over the holiday). Not sure though that I am going to have the time or the energy soon.

So, I have signed up with a gym close to where I work and I officially started today (or maybe it's only official tomorrow when you work independently?).

Anyway, I know now what to do and tomorrow I am going to go there early in the morning and from there straight to work.

The time frame is three months to achieve my Gym Goals (down the fat percentage, up the muscle ones) and to do that I have also decided that I am stopping eating chocolate and other snacks for three months. Having done it before, three months is a walk in the park. The pool should open soon and I am going to try and swim too. I am pretty determined now to get rid of all the fat from my youth.

Will see how it goes...

(If I had one... I am just so busy can't update my journal regularly and yet still some stuff happened that is worth mentioning...)

• Pride and Prejudice: My bosses have asked my to learn the Asp.Net programming language (a language I didn't know). That in itself is cool -- learning something new and getting paid for it and being asked to do so! I have finally finished a 400 pages long book about the subject and now I have to take it for a spin on my own. That will be a bit harder, but that's the only way to master it. Unfortunately, I don't like it too much (yet?) and prefer working with PHP. I also come from a different school of programming who used to program with just Notepad. It feels that Asp.Net to Classic ASP is what Frontpage is to programming HTML in notepad. And the funny thing is that it doesn't really work on Internet Explorer 8.
• And from one geeky thing to another... I admit that my taste in movies (and music and probably other forms of entertainment) is similar to that of a 15 year old girl. Still, went on Saturday to 17 Again and Wolverine and I really liked both of them. There is no surprise that 17 Again is way up in the box office charts -- it is good and I admit Efron does a really good job. I liked that Wolverine acted like a true prequel and didn't retcon anything that I could remember (Scott Summers's background is completely different, but it was never mentioned in the movies themselves).
• Some more higher class culture has been had in the past two weeks -- one week I went to the museum to see an exhibition about Tel Aviv (which is celebrating its 100th year) and its secret history. Yesterday I went to my mom to a concert of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. That was really nice. They had some music, but then their "main act" included reading of a new translation of excerpts from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night, operan and choir singing. Didn't like the text itself much, but let's say it was unique...
• And now a story about me putting my foot in my mouth: I sit in the Customer Services room at the office and next to a phone that no one is using and people only call by mistake. And when I mean people I mean that it's the people from reception, my fellow workers. So yesterday (after my brain was a bit fries, I must admit in my defense) the phone rang and I answerd it with "Cemetary , hello". And who was on the line? The branch manager! To make things worse, later I learned that there was a customer in the room with her and I was put on speaker!

I am sooo busy I don't have time to update my journal regularly or even semi-regularly anymore. I am not complaining about being swamped (well maybe about the part my studies have in it) but I really could use a vacation...

More life bits, more suitable to Twitter or something but that is what I can do at the moment:

• My birthday last week was uneventful. True, I went out to dinner with the family and the grandparents and we had a BBQ lunch party on Saturday, but the day itself was spent at work and then it was Holocaust Remembrance Day eve.Hopefully it will be a better day next year.
• I had a vacation yesterdays for Israel's Independence Day. The family went to the Israeli Air Force museum. That was kind of cool. Much bigger than expected it was a fun day to all of us. Seeing some of the planes in action was much cooler in real life!
• Work is going great. I really like my new job...
• Did I write about my acting workshop? Managed to go to all of it and it was hard, intense but really worth it. Hopefully I will get a chance to blog my conclusions soon.
• Feel rather foolish today: I managed to forget both my wallet and my mobile phone, and when I got to the office I realized that the two meetings I came here for in the first place are canceled (and I could have stayed home and worked there).......

I haven't written much in the blog not because my life's boring, but because I have so much happening right now and I just don't have the time. Not to mention that my new work, while really fun (the people there are really nice) really takes its toll on me energy-wise. Hope it is just the first week jitters or something.

Luckily for me, I will be able to attend an intensive acting workshop during the Passover holiday. I am really looking forward to it, but this is going to be intense indeed: I will be working whenever I can when I am not at the workshop.

Happy holidays everyone!

I am sick, and of course it is a time that is least convenient to me: I am starting my new job in less than a week, I need to really finish up organizing my room so I can actually work there, I have a class tonight and an assignment in history due by Thursday.

Right now all I want to do is lie down. Hopefully if I stay in bed for about two hours I will feel better. Here's hoping....

(*TA = Tel Aviv, of course...)

Had an interesting day in the Big City yesterday. The main visit for the visit was a job interview, arranged by a dear contact of mine. Can't say much about it, only say that it has to do with computers, Internet and programming. Actually, sounds rather interesting and almost similar to what I did in Singapore, so at least I have the experience.

The terms of this contract are very convenient to me and so I am going to take the job, which starts next month. Seems like I am going to be in Tel Aviv quite often soon.

After that, I met with one of my best friends and we hung out and had a good time. Together we also went to my old acting school. I had been trying to contact my teacher since I got back. I was itching to get back to school. The good thing was that I met him and he remembered me (and even my grandma's puffs) but the bad news were that he stopped teaching. Needless to say, I am disappointed. That school was a source of joy and was my home away from home at one point.

He couldn't recommend another school for me, but he did point me to a very intensive workshop during Passover. I am going to enroll in that and basically take whatever I can.

I am very busy right now organizing my room and other errands while acclimating to life here again. After that I will think and see what other extra curricular activity I can find myself.

Last night I went to my first university class. The course: Discrete Math. Not the most interesting subject in the world, I know, but I have taken the class a few years back and had to drop out and now I want to prove to myself that I can do it.

Anyhow, the three-hour-long class went fine. It didn't drag, I wasn't bored and actually, I am glad I went because it helped with the assignment which is due this Thursday.

True, the real reason I went was to make friends and that didn't happen, but at least it wasn't such a waste of time, right?

Back at home, or in my room to be exact, I have years' worth of junk now I need to sift through. I have no excuse this time -- this place is going to be my base of operations for the foreseeable future.

My mom's step mother died and yesterday we attended her funeral (some landing for my dad, who got home just a mere hours earlier). She was technically my grandmother but we weren't close at all -- my mom's parents aren't really a part of our lives. Still, this was the second funeral I have ever attended, and the first one I was completely lucid for.

Usually I try to lag behind because naturally I am feeling uncomfortable in events such as this, but the moment I went to offer my mom my support, was the moment they needed male volunteers to carry the stretcher with the body to the grave. Since I was there I volunteered. At the same time I was morbidly curious and afraid the body might fall. It didn't luckily.

After that, it was over quite quickly and we left home.

Later that night I met with my father's side of the family and that was much much more pleasurable.

Besides that, I am slowly acclimating to life back at home. I am trying to ease into that by just lazing it out for the weekend. Tomorrow though I have to get some stuff done and I have a university class that evening.

So.... Japan. Sitting now at my hotel room in Singapore, at the airport waiting for my flight back to Israel, and having some time to kill, I will take this opportunity to summarize my Japanese experience, which all in all, was excellent by the way, no matter how bitchy I might have sound in my daily posts. I definitely want to come back (Tokyo!) but there are more destinations on my Places To Visit Before I Die list.

 

So here are my impression of Japan in general and in no particular order:

• Japan is basically a Western country where the people just happen to talk Japanese. I was waiting the entire time for a cultural shock or some other surprises. Nothing. I don't think I am too jaded, it is just that Japan is different, yes, but not that different.

• While no crazy machines (or robots) the Japanese must love their vending machines. Plenty of vending machines that sell cigarettes (they are weird like that, they can even smoke on trains and in restaurants) and hot and cold drinks. Some places, there was a machine every 10 meters. I kid you not.

• The people themselves are very nice, but they speak no English! That's a major drawback. Luckily, the public transportation talks and displays messages in English as well so we managed to get around, but try to find out if there's meat in your dish, and then you have a problem.

• A lot of sounds. From talking escalators to plenty of announcements even on buses. There was even music playing when it was green at the road crossing signal. The Japanese clerks, too, gave us their entire spiel in Japanese even when it was clear we can't understand a word they are saying (okay... I could understand 'thank you').

• Japan is cold!!! That was something I wasn't used to. Seriously, I haven't experienced winter in about three years, and no I don't plan to. When I get home I am going to start my Run-Away-From-Winter, and would like to go to Singapore when the temperatures in Israel get too cold for my liking. The funny thing is that when it wasn't cold in Japan, it rained.

• In hindsight, we could have gone to Nikko just for a day and that would have left us an extra day in Tokyo, for me the only place that we feel like we should and could have spent more time. Still, no regrets about Nikko [snow!]. Tokyo will have to wait to the next time.

• As for the food itself, when I managed to find something to eat, almost every time it was a good meal.

The best of all, of course, was the chance to travel with my dad. Besides the fact that I can't really navigate to save my life, his company (when I weren't bitching about food, ha!) was very pleasant. He is quite a cool person (and I am not saying this because I know there's a good chance it will get to him).

 

The stay in Singapore was too short. Obviously I couldn't fit everyone that I wanted to see, but still the people I did see made the 48 hours I stayed there awesome. I also had to kill some time before my flight so I went to the cinema at the mall. Maybe when I am settled at home I will write my thoughts on the movies I saw.