Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

It has been a year since I entered into the professional working life again. After a 5 year long hiatus. So far I’ve changed 3 different work places. Yeah… in a year. Not that I wanted to, but I had no choice. The first one didn’t work out, second one the business closed down, and now the third one is okay so far, but it is going so slow and a little bit unorganized that I have a feeling that even this one may not last long. For me at least. Well, I can be a bit more patient and bear the brunt of it all, or I can make a change myself ( with a couple of other people too).

On days when I felt a little down in the dumps I’d look around the internet, on all sorts of business sites – webhosting, South Korean clothes selling site, phoenix pool repair site, Kyoto traditional products site, and international day-cares – in the hope for some inspiration to come in. There were ‘light bulb lighting up’ moments.

A year ago I was talking about finding a job, and a year later I am talking about working for myself, I just wonder where I’d be a year from now on. Hopefully somewhere I would like to be.

I love, love, love Friday evenings. Cause you know that there are 2 days holiday ahead of you. Unused and still empty. You can do what ever you want to do on those days. Well, not exactly what ever I want to do, but at least there are free pockets of time to spend on doing something I like or to get unfinished work cleared up.

It’s been a month since I started working at the new place and so far so good. Nothing to complain much about the place. There are pros and cons. I’ve started to get some changes done. Try to create a better working atmosphere with colleagues for example. Get them to join a private group for colleagues on facebook to discuss about work related and off work related things – go for drinks, hikes etc. Well, maybe later on try to get the bosses to agree on getting t-shirts with logo and engraved name tags for the employees as well. Well, that’s that about job and work place for now.

I want to enjoy my weekend. Hopefully both days would be clear, sunny beautiful days.

I work 8 – 4 everyday. Right after work it’s parent duty. Until 8-9 pm (usually later than that). For this job I don’t get the reward in monetary form. I also tutor 3 times a week. Twice on weekdays and once on weekend. So far I’m grateful that I have the extra income coming in other than from my regular job.  However, it would really be nice if I can earn more. ( don’t we all think so too.. )

The only investment we have right now is insurance that is also a savings investment in case if we would surrender the policy after some years and forex. Hopefully one day we would get to check out annuity quote from some major companies out there and not to mention stocks as well. But gosh, does it seem a little far still. Until then, we need to save and save and slowly invest. That’s all we can do in our effort to get out of the rat race.

Just how my countrymen would put it, ‘close, open, close,open’ your eyes and the weekend is over. Just like that. I don’t even remember what I did. All I know is that I didn’t have enough rest.

I don’t really buy so many things in a year for myself. Not expensive things that is. Even if I do, it is usually for Christmas or for my birthday. This year, for Christmas I am aiming for a Kindle touch. I’m saving up for it. Well, not that it cost like ipads or med carts or a house that I cannot buy immediately if I want. But since I would like to maintain my budget, saving up for it seems to be the best thing to do. Further more it makes it a lot more fun to see the savings grow and the time to get it grows closer and closer.

Weekend came , weekend went. Blink of an eye. On Saturday we went to the zoo and spent nearly  half a day there. Came back real tired and K.O. ed.  Woke in the evening to just do a bit of work online and send emails. Today, went to tutor and came back in the afternoon, and started working again on the things that I couldn’t complete on week day. Weekends are so precious now. I just can’t get enough of it.

Another 2 weeks to go till another 4 days long weekend to come. I just can’t wait for that to come.

It’s weekend again. Seems to be the only thing to look forward to in life at the moment. Sweet, wonderful, weekend. It’s snowing again so most probably it is going to be a sledding weekend again. To tell the truth, I – along with millions of European residence I believe – had enough of winter already. Sledding weekend is nice, but now I am looking forward to ‘tag along your yoga mat bags, flip flops, spaghetti-top, shades and sunshine’ weekend.

The only good thing about the cold weather is how nice it is to just stay in bed longer. That’s what I like to do every weekend. Since I have to get up at 5.30 am every week day, to sleep in on the weekends sure is sweet. So since it is weekend now, Mother nature can shake those snow flakes as much as she wants.

Weekend is here again. I slept till about 10 today. It was the best rest I had all week. Now that I’ve regain most of my energy, it is time to do some recollection.

I’m rechecking all my blogs – time to revamp and rethink about the contents. I hope after all that I would still have time to re-evaluate my Japanese self-study program. I’ve been slacking since Christmas holiday as workload has increased at the daycare and at home. I’m feeling tired every day.

I love my job but God knows how much I miss having plenty of time to do all the things I want.  Weekends are indeed precious times these days.

After a long break from watching animes or from watching anything else for that matter, for the past two days it was sort of a release. I watched all 26 episodes of ‘Busou Renkin’ and continued with ‘Witch Hunter Robin’. With all the cool anime websites around, at least I don’t have to figure out how to download youtube videos to watch for later this time.

I could catch Japanese phrases or words I understand. Feels good that at least there is some improvement even though my Japanese studies are going real slow as I am trying to learn in between work, home and family.

It is usually when the weather is cold and gray that I reminisce about the days when I was back home where it is either raining and chilly or dry and hot. I tend to get a little homesick sometimes regardless  of how many times I denied it when ever someone asked me the question of being homesick. Seems to me that if I said yes, the feeling would just get worse, so it was better to just lie.

In fact, if I feel the homesickness is a little unbearable, I would simply give a call back home. It is nice to hear familiar voices that you miss so much. Calls are cheaper these days, if only the signals are better. I think in one call session, I would be disconnected at least 2-3 times. Just made me think of getting a wilson booster for cellullar signal amplifier. Oh well, an interrupted call is better than no call at all right?

With the temperature outside being really cold and dark right now, I really wish I am back home where it is warm and sunny.