So I Guess I'm A CIR Now

...Which is pretty cool, although it means that I'll have to leave the Big Hamlet for the Claustrophobically Minute Hamlet (I'm going to miss my apartment) in six months. I'm not looking forward to only being able to buy manga and such once a month (if that), but have otherwise surprised myself with how excited I am. I'm going to be translating and interpreting Japanese - which I currently do for fun - full time come next August, and that will be nice. It's odd to realise that for the first time in my life, I'll be doing something I like for a living. Yes, pay me to sit around speaking and reading Japanese all day. That'll be dandy!

(I'm also one of two people in the prefecture who's passed the test to switch job types. Go me!)


In other news, my supervisors reacted with the not terribly unexpected shitty attitudes. This is exactly why I did not want to make any decisions in October. Six months of attitude will be bad enough; I don't think I could have survived nine of them. (In other news, I'm going to be translating and interpreting Japanese for a living, current supervisors. Bite me!)


I somehow managed to pay my electric bills for October and November twice, while not paying my December or January ones at all. (Methinks a slip up on the electric company's part, but lord knows they would never do anything like that.) I asked if they could just ( credit the remainder to my upcoming bills... )

Cause after all, I'm not going to be doing English lessons for much longer. >:}

Bills, bills, bills

So I left work 15 minutes early today, not caring who saw. Let's see if it gets brought up tomorrow. Of course (of course, of course) it starts snowing the moment I set foot outside of the school building. I steam back to my apartment, drop my laptop off in the genkan, and mount my trusty mountain bike for what will undoubtably be the most harrowing experience of my life. (Lots of Japanese people ride their granny bikes through blizzards to work or school. I have a mountain bike and I could never work up the courage to attempt it.) Now would be a good point to mention that I've been hit three times during the middle of the day in summer by crazy Japanese drivers who haven't yet grasped the meaning of 'both' in 'look both ways before making a left turn on red.' Also, my brakes no longer work.

But I had to get this bill paid or the chances are I'd be forced to take vacation time to do it (as well as looking like an ass to the electric company employees). So I get on my bike, pedal twice, and let inertia and ice-slicked sidewalks do the rest, careful not to go too fast lest I be killed by an idiot. I'm doing the whole Flintstones breaking with the feet deal, and man is it lame.

And yes, I was almost hit by two dumbass drivers screaming up to intersections to make lefts on red and not paying attention to that pesky little pedestrian signal that says they have no business being in a crosswalk at that moment. I swear, one of these days I'm going to start bashing in windows with my fist.

But I make it to the electric company in one piece. I go inside. BAM. Unlike the rest of Japan, where insulation and central heating are unknown, the electric company does not mess around with keeping warm. Thirty seconds and I'm sweating like a pig in my wool coat, sweater, and army-issue thermals.

And now onto the shenanigans, because you can't deal with bureaucracy in Japan without shenanigans. It so happens that the person whom I was meant to speak with has decided to absent himself from the office, and no one else knows exactly what it was he wanted to talk to me about. I sit around, sweat rolling down my back, face, and chest, and wait for someone to get a clue.

Finally, a woman with whom I'd spoken on the phone earlier is located. I explain to her about the bank transfer, and she has enough presence of mind to assure me she'll handle it, thus ensure that I won't receive a phone call next week asking me to retransfer the funds they've overpaid to me back to their account.

Anyway, she hands me the money they owe me, and I hand it right back to her to pay my two outstanding months' worth of bills. As it turns out, I am not give 800, but rather 43 yen back. That isn't even enough to buy a stamp.

I ask the woman if there's any way my bills can just be deducted from my bank account (as some of my other ones are), instead of relying on the current system, which is obviously flawed. She replied that they've already set that up for me.

However, I will still continue to get monthly bills in the mail. I was told to tear them up as I receive them, to make sure that I don't actually pay another bill twice.

Oh dear gods, I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

That will be all.