Well….my life has been a bit busy. So much that I haven’t done this in almost 2 months! Welp, this will be a fun entry won’t it? 
Let’s see, where to begin. To the album I’m listening to right now, I bought Breaking Benjamin’s new album “Dark Before Dawn,” and it is just…it has done its share of carrying me through these past couple of weeks. It is truly wonderful to see (and hear) Breaking Benjamin back in action, and the 6-year wait is worth it. I’m still kind of baffled how short it is…it’s like around the 40 minute mark, but it’s like that good amount of length just to go back and keep listening again and again, and again…….and again 
but don’t just let me ramble about it, I suggest to go give it a listen yourself! (Youtube is a wonderful source for this kind of stuff xD)
Recently, like last week, I was let go from one of my jobs. The main reason they shoved at me is that they thought I was going to have open availability, but they took too long to actually get me working, so I started at my other job (like 2 weeks in before I started this one). This job that I was let go from did give me a good amount of hours, but just…the management could use some work. 
Hence why, I don’t feel as bad for leaving that job. In a way, I kind of expected it to happen sooner or later, but not in such a weird way (bringing me in the middle of the day, do a 3 hour shift, and tell me I don’t have the job anymore 
). Welp, at least the other job I still have treats me…a lot better (like a human being) and let’s leave it at that (I’ll keep the negativity away, since I know my friends have heard enough of it). It’s like a giant weight has lifted of off my shoulders. I may not have many hours to work, but at least I don’t feel so pressured and trapped by them. 
For those who know, I’ve been trying to get a job in Japan by teaching English over there. Mainly, I’ve been waiting on the JET Program for the past couple of months. The scheduled departure date was yesterday, and I still got nothing. They say they do late departures, but at this point, I’m not gonna hold my breath. I started thinking this last week, like, I have to find other avenues to get there, because I WILL do this. I WILL get to Japan, even if I have to search the depths of the deepest parts of the Internet to do it. So yeah, being fired from that kind of job left me to have this kind of “week vacation” so I’ve just been applying anywhere I can. Just getting some sort of accomplishment when I send the information to the company that might be my ticket to my dream job. What I didn’t expect is that one of them actually sent me an email back…asking me to schedule a Skype interview in the future, for an hour block…and during that interview I’m gonna have to do a teaching demo (30 minute teaching demo). Once I got this email, so many feelings surged within me. Excitement, anxiety, fear, anticipation….so many things going at once, trying to logically process this entire thing. So what should I do? Sleep on it of course! 
This is going to take a lot of time and prep, but I’m no stranger with these kinds of interviews (I’ve already done it like 3 times in person). The Skype element is certainly different, but at least I don’t have to go anywhere! However, I know I gotta put my heart and soul into preparing for this interview, trying to do better than the last. I do have some material left from one of the greatest professors I’ve ever known, and I know it’ll guide me through this.
Now for the highlight of what has happened so far. Last Friday, I went up to Seattle to meet my oneechan (Sagojyousartpage) so we can have some awesome fun doing some karaoke! The journey getting up there…wasn’t so great. I know how to get up there, I just didn’t know the details on how to get around to where I wanted to go. I end up around a hour and a half late, and I was walking around so much and stuff. I finally get there though, and thankfully she said she had a lot of fun singing by herself. I don’t like being late, especially for things like this, and her not being angry about it made me feel less stressed about it. So we karaoke’d for a good 2 and a half hours (which went by too quickly), and it was super fun. Since she is Japanese, she mainly stuck with Japanese songs, while I stayed with my favorites (in English of course). However, since I am a Japanese major and all, of course I had to sing a couple of Japanese songs. Akira-oneechan responded with singing a Spanish song (which she spoke, and sung really well btw), that kind of caught me off guard. Then I remembered…ooooh yeah she took some Spanish XD I sang some Green Day, Journey, Queen (which I think I need to do some more Queen, Freddie is just too fun to sing). One of the crowning moments was when we were trying to think of a song to do together…and choices were running thin pretty fast….well it was really more of a split second decision. The song we choose, the popular Disney song that took the world by storm? None other than “Let It Go” from Frozen. I think we rocked the hell out that song 😛 (even though if anyone else heard that, I would have been overshadowed by Akira pretty easily 
xP)
Besides volunteering with her, I haven’t had much time to hang out with my oneechan, and going up there to hang out with her was something I needed…badly xP Now I definitely want to do it again! (hopefully not be late the next time :P). It gave me the chance to get to know her more, to hang out, be ourselves, do random shenanigans like siblings would do. It was definitely refreshing to hang out with someone I know is a dear friend of mine, and is practically a sister to me 
You don’t come across siblings like these so easily xD
Sooo yup, these past couple of weeks has had its ups and downs, but I know to look on the brighter sides of things, and keep a positive outlook for now and for the future. Now I have another memorable day that I’ll treasure, enjoying the time I had with my oneechan 😀 Here’s to another karaoke session! (hopefully we won’t completely blow out our voices either 
)
‘Til next time, treasure the time you have with your family and live life like no other.
“Time will not take the life from me” – Breaking Benjamin, Dark Before Dawn (from the song “Never Again”)
Thoughts, Feelings, 何で？ 