December 1st through 2nd in 2015

Well, yesterday things got a bit better, though not a great deal. I still feel awful about most everything, but it’s not so oppressive. I have found, for some dumb reason, that nicotine tends to snap me out of depression and make me less hungry at the expense of giving me bad head and stomach aches after. I need to buy a hookah. That’ll make life a lot better.
I ended up with nothing to do yesterday. Did 10K steps and 100 flights of stairs while at school. Then I went home, vegged a bit until 6, then got some ramen and gyoza. I think it’s more calories than I’m budgeting it to be, but I’m so sick of eating at 7-11 and Plasse that I just can’t stand it anymore. Anyway, after that, it was time to go to tea ceremony with Sam. That’s the big group class, not the private one. I had a decent time, but I wish I hadn’t signed up. I’d expressed interest before I had the teacher I’ve got now, and now this is just kind of a redundant waste of time. I’d missed 2 lessons in a row, and the teacher was not happy, but, of course, tried not to show it. Then again, she was super nice to me after. Maybe I’m just being miserable and paranoid again. Could be. Dammit my head hurts. The headache meds the doctor gave me doesn’t seem to be able to stand up to the pressure that is being caused by my nicotine, and the stomach meds, while healing me eventually, are kind of making things difficult now. Of course, obviously worsened by smoking. However, the mild effect of that drug seems to scramble downward spirals a bit, and so I’m hesitant to give it up. That having been said, if I develop a dependence on nicotine, it’ll lose any actual effect on me. So I’d best get rid of the rest of the pack when I get home.
I feel tired and exhausted even though I went over my sleep goal. I’ll try to beat my sleep goal again tonight, but we’ll see if that has any impact. It hasn’t so far. All I’ve got tonight is Eikaiwa, and that finishes at 7.
It’s going to start pouring in a few hours, which kind of prevents me from getting much exercise in, and I’ve got three inconveniently placed classes to do today. I’m teaching with Ebihara, which is never fun. She doesn’t know how to utilize me well, and she seems really nervous around me all the time. Two of the three classes are first years. My next class with her (already did 1st period) is 3rd period, and it’s with the class that I hate. Classes never go terribly well with her, and I think it’s because the students can tell she’s nervous. With Inori, you know that she can snap. With Matsumoto, you know that if you look at her askance, she’ll snap your spine and throw you out the window without missing a beat of her lesson.
Ugh. 1-1 was bad. There’s a kid that Ebihara needs to just kill. He was a constant distraction, but she doesn’t know how to handle him. Anyway, I invented a game called “Last Man Standing” which is a rip-off of “Never have I ever”. I have students answer questions, and if other students agree, they stay standing, if they disagree they sit. Round one they were confused. Round two they played. Round three we couldn’t finish on account of flagrant cheating. I hate those bastards.
I want to walk around the school today because I’m freezing, but my stomach hurts too much to eat the stupid whole lunch. I’d skip it altogether, but I have to take my medicine with food, meaning I’ll just do rice. However, if I’m healthy enough to walk, I’m healthy enough to eat everything, so that’s a mess. So, I’ll just sit here and freeze rather than try to force down the heavy and unpleasant Japanese lunch that is in store for me. I realize that garlic ramen isn’t the best thing to have for dinner when your stomach is on the fritz, but it’s warming, and I’m tired of being frozen. I need to buy some long underwear tonight.
Also, I feel like I may have mentioned this earlier somewhere, but this document has now passed over 65K words. Meaning that, since August, I’ve written something that, were it fiction, would be a respectable length for a novel.
Three weeks until vacation. I’m not sure if that’s going to be good for me or terrible for me. Time is both what I need and what I fear. We’ll see what’s happening then.
I think that when tea ceremony classes (the Tuesday ones) are over, I’m going to just stop doing extra night stuff and focus entirely on weight. I may even buy one of those cheap mini treadmills that I saw for sale in Sendai to cover me for bad weather. It’s not the same, or as fun, but it’s something. The rain here is messing with everything. I’ve got to make weight loss my number one priority. Maybe if I’m feeling healthier I won’t feel so much like life isn’t worth living anymore. Debatable, but we’ll see.
Of course, now the issue is money. I need to get the shaken paid on the car. And I need to get a dehumidifier, and I’m beginning to become more and more convinced that if I don’t need a treadmill now, I’ll need one soon. So . . . yeah. There go most of my savings. That’s fun to think about. This also chains me further to Japan, which, while it’s what I plan on anyway, is still painful. I hate feeling trapped, even when it’s in something I want.
Maybe just nothing’s going to make me happy. Maybe I’m just incapable of being happy but through that miraculous self-will that makes one happy.
So, will power.
When one lacks it, what the crap do you do to get it?