Month: February 2020

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Approached at the gym.

This happened last night while I was working out at my university’s gym and I thought it deserved a little write up.

Yesterday I started off my workout by heading towards the bench press area and was in the middle of some warmup sets when a dude approached me. My music was pretty loud so I took out an ear bud and lowered the volume, and I ask what’s up. He said he’s just starting out, which seemed legit since he was a pretty skinny dude, and wanted to know how to use the bench press properly. I felt pretty honored someone would ask me and was more than glad to teach him how to do it and spotted him for a set too.

I recommended him a Youtuber I watched in the beginning by the name of Scott Herman and wished him luck at the gym. When you get asked workout questions, it feelsgoodbro.jpeg.

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First sell on Mercari.

Had my first sale on Mercari the other day and I felt like I just a big milestone. First time I’ve ever sold anything of mine to anyone, let alone to a stranger in another state! I had a Funko Pop listed on there that was just collecting dust so I thought I’d give it a shot and list it. It took a few days but I finally got someone to buy it. It helps that I knocked off $9 off of the price listed on the Pop Price Guide. Mercari takes a 10% fee, and then there’s the shipping cost, but after all of that I still made a decent profit so it worked out.

I wish I checked out Mercari back when I heard about it in 2016 or 2017. There was a salary man I used to follow on Twitter from Japan that would often post about it (interesting story: this salary man eventually caused me to delete my profile after he harmlessly asked if I was “(first name last name)” somehow finding out my identity). I didn’t think it had a US equivalent at the time, and if it did I just hadn’t heard about it. Nowadays I get a lot of ads about “Mercari, the selling app” on Hulu though. I already use the app, no need to convince me any further!

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I asked someone out in Japanese.

It was around 11:25 AM. I had just finished taking my environmental health exam when I looked at my phone and realized I’d have to rush if I wanted to make it there in time. “There” is conveniently just one floor above my classroom. The room is painted a warm, rustic orange and was decorated with Spanish-themed items – probably the Spanish department’s little base. We’ve got permission to use the room every week at our designated time though, so no worries there. After a few minutes I pop the question, “will you go to the museum with me” in my heavy gaijin accent (don’t blame me, I haven’t had much practice lately).

Right after I said that, the guy next to me swooped in and asked her to go to the aquarium with him. What in tarnation is going on, you ask? I’m at the weekly Japanese Conversation Club! We’re a few days past Valentine’s Day but the native Japanese volunteers who organize the club’s agenda decided on a Valentine’s theme! The first portion of the club I’ve got class, so I can only make it for the last half of the club but even that ~45 minutes or so of listening to natives and speaking with them is a great help! We discussed places you’d take someone out to and also some ways to ask someone out in Japanese. They prepped us all for “yes” or “no” responses so at least now everyone’s aware of what to do if someone rejects you!

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Senior-itis or unhealthy eating habits – what’s to blame?

If goes without saying that your eating habits influence your lifestyle to some degree. Lately, I’ve been eating a lot of fast food and takeout, and the level of laziness in me has topped the charts. There’s the grogginess I experience every morning without fail, the pestering feeling of wanting to just sit and rest, and the lack of willingness to do things I know I should be doing. Before my eating habits went horrible, all of those would happen but nowhere at the frequency it is now.

If anything, this just gave me a big wake up call about fixing my bad eating habits – stat! The thing is though this unhealthiness has caused a positive feedback loop that’s leading to a never-ending cycle of laziness and procrastination. OR, this could just be senior-itis and my mind attempting to shift the blame on my eating habits. At this point, it feels like a little bit of both. Either way, I should probably get up and do something productive.

Here’s what my fridge looked like a few days ago (not all my pizza)!

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Reaching the starting line.

Many people think that “real” life begins at a certain age or when certain milestones are reached. To some, these milestones could be when you begin college, start out in your career, when you finally get married, or start a family and so on. But to reach those milestones you have to stand at the starting line. What exactly is the starting line though?

The starting line is where you stand when you’re ready to set out for your first milestone and begin “real” life. What’s at the end is the inevitable fate for all people, but along the way there are new milestones with each being influenced in some way or form by previous ones. Just as if it were a race, you don’t stand at the starting line until you’ve got the right amount of preparation done. Money, skills, experience – once you’re confident enough with what you’ve got is when you can stand at the starting line in my opinion. Some people are thrown right at the starting line and told to race against the others, and while it is possible to get out there and start running, it might be a little tougher than usual to advance.

For those of us who subscribe to the mentality of reaching a certain milestone to start “real” life and be able to run from the starting line, life up until you get there can seem a little meaningless and dull at times. You know everything you’re doing is going towards the preparation for you to stand at the starting line, but especially when the time comes near for you to reach your milestone, you begin to get antsy about everything and want time to speed up for you. At least, that’s how I feel.

I think I’m really close to finally standing at the start line, and I’m just ready to get running on the path known as life.

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Times a blur.

These past two years for me have been hectic and filled with a lot of changes, and that’s probably the reason why time has felt like a blur. It used to be that I could remember exactly what I had for dinner a week ago on a Thursday, but if someone asked me that now, I would probably forget most of the details or mix it up with another day (although recently I’ve been eating pretty much the same frozen meals/chicken so I’d have a 50/50 chance of getting it right). And so I’ve been wondering if there’s a reason why all my days feel like they’re mashed up together, and I came to the conclusion that it’s mainly just the anticipation of graduation that’s the source of my sense of time getting all mangled up.

My degree isn’t a technical degree like computer science or engineering, but it’s still a great degree and the probability of me getting a great job is still high from what I believe. A great job would mean a higher quality of life, being able to enjoy more of my hobbies, take the vacations I’ve always wanted, and have a good amount of worry lifted off my shoulders. I suppose my brain, in anticipation for all those rewards, is mashing up my sense of time until I finally attain what I’ve been waiting for all these years. It’s sort of a mental standstill in other words, and I’m not really sure how I feel about it. On one hand I’m happy that time doesn’t feel like it’s dragging on and my time in school is progressing quickly, but on the other hand I hope this sense of time being a blur doesn’t continue after I’ve finally gotten a job too.

I guess we’ll see soon enough considering I might just be walking the stage this summer. Although, I still have to take one class next semester to officially get my diploma so my “real” job won’t probably start until next year if all goes as planned.

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Operation Graduation

Key Personnel: Me.

Location: Undisclosed.

Level of Importance: Extremely Urgent

Looks like this mission won’t take much longer to finish from the looks of it. All I’ve got remaining is one class actually, BUT as usual there’s always some sort of obstacle in my way that will delay everything if I’m not proactive about it. As it turns out, a pre-requisite I need for the class is an introductory course which I’ve taken at a community college but it wasn’t considered to be an equivalent to the course offered at my university. Oh come on! I submitted the syllabus and a reason for why I believe it should be accepted to my advisor and I can only hope the board that overlooks these petitions okays this. Because if not, I’ll be stuck taking some class over the summer and dishing out a couple hundred dollars for a course I’ve already taken.

I should know by next week though!

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Who wants free money?

Because I’m spending so much lately I might as well start handing out free money to everyone. I swear, ever since I increased my hours at work I feel like a millionaire when I’m actually just making a little extra after bills. Lately my excess money is going towards eating food at university since I’ve been forgetting to pack a lunch. If the books didn’t make you dirt poor their overpriced food definitely will after a few days of eating lunch there.

Another thing some of my money has gone towards are Funko Pops. We’ll get into that much later but let’s just say I could’ve bought myself some other much needed items rather than the 14 Funko Pops I’ve got stacked up on my entertainment stand. We’ll talk about this hobby later like I said, but it’s a good example of my excess money spending.

And finally, the last couple of dollar bills desperately clinging onto my bank account were really close to being spent on a pre-order for the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons Switch. I already have a red and blue Switch I bought on Black Friday – nice try AC:NH Switch! The pastel color scheme really almost had me though.

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