a few days after my last entry, the power cord on this here lappy-toppy went to absolute crap. which, actually, i am responsible for. i use this thing for powerpoint with the JAM kids, and i tell the leaders over and over that that they have to be careful with the technology. and, of course, i was the one that pulled the bench out from under the laptop while i was moving it. it landed pretty hard, right on the power cord, right where it comes into the computer. the compy was mostly ok (nothing a good take apart/put together didn't fix pretty quick), and the power cord still worked, but the end was bent at a 45-degree angle. which i could live with. then, like weeks later, as i was using it for non-arobic activities, the tip of the cord just couldn't handle it anymore, and broke off. and, of course, hewlett-packard computers are not the most popular over here in japan-land, so it was somewhere between almost impossible and completely impossible to get a new cord from over here. and then it was golden week, so the HP japan headquarters closed down for that whole week. in the end, in what i fear has become typical ryan-fashion, i went to hard-off ( i can't even write that without feeling weird), found an old HP power cord that had the right size adaptor on the end, but ran the wrong amount of power, and cut the end off it and soldered it to the broken end of mine. and it works fine now.
so there was that.
also, i lost many, if not all, of my most important cards. i don't really like to always carry around a freakin' huge wallet with me, so when i can, i pull my drivers license, my bank card, and my alien registration out, wrap a hairband around it, and carry it around in my pocket.
sidenote: it's really hard to blog while listening to weird al's "albuquerque". i have now rectified the situation.
so, at about the same time as i was taking trains all over japan, trying to find a store that sold HP parts, my cards went missing. truly in denial, i refused to talk to the police, or the city, or the bank, or the licensing center, positive that i had simply misplaced them in my apartment somewhere. for those of you familiar with my rooms, and my history of short-term memory problems, this will seem perfectly reasonable. as time wore on, however, it seemed less and less likely that these cards were in my possession. it's also a little scary to be without the alien registration, as i have been stopped and asked for it before by a bored policeman, who needs no reason to do so. so, finally, i decided that it was not impossible that i had actually lost them downtown, and i went in and started the process for getting some new cards. as was inevitable, shortly thereafter, i received a post card from the police department--not koban--saying that they had some of my belongings if i would be kind enough to come and get them. so, being part-way through the process of renewing cards, i had to go back and fill out still more paperwork, the purpose of which was apparently to anull the previous paperwork.
much stamping of the hanko ensued.
the wedding is a month from tomorrow, which is awesome. there's still stuff to get worked out, of course, but the most difficult stuff is all taken care of. at least, the stuff we know about. if we did no other work until the week of the wedding itself, we realized, we'd still be pretty ok. which is a good feeling. we are, however, rediculously overfull in the chapel. it's seriously gonna be standing room only. people just keep walking by us in the halls and being like "hey, good news! i rearranged my entire life, so now i can come to your wedding!" and we're like "...and your name is......?" ok, so it's not that bad, but there's been a few people--or worse, families--that have given us the "good news" that they are coming to our wedding, when they weren't really invited in the first place, and there's really no room for them. but they're coming anyways! moral of the story--sometimes having your wedding a thousand miles away from anything convenient means that the people that you really do want to come (all you saps in the states) really can't, while people you don't really even consider friends get to come. lesson learned.
in general, though, we've just really let go of this thing. as the college kids are starting to come back, and life's getting crazy with hanging out with siblings, cousins, and friends, we realized that these couple of kids is really just the tip of the iceberg--there's what, about 40 family members flying over from the states? and it already feels crazy, and fun, and sleep-deprived? we can't really imagine what it'll be like when everyone's here. it will be madness. there will be laughing, crying, punching, and chocolate cake. and it really will be an epic wedding. and it's actually gonna happen. weird.
i was gonna post some pictures to spice this up a little....but i looked through the photos and realized that i don't really have any new pics. well, any new ones that haven't been posted on facebook. although, not all of you have facebook. i'd hate to be discriminatory, so i'll make a google photo album again and put it into the bottom of this again. this time, it's pics of how me, nelle, her sister lydia, and lydia's hubby john spent a 3 day weekend a few weeks ago. yay for sunburn!
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| Hiking Nojiri |
