Thursday, July 29, 2004

Busy, busy, busy
Well, sort of anyway.  I haven't gotten that much done, but it sure has been a draining week.  This entry might read a bit randomly, but I guess that is a good reflection of how my week has been going.

With help from the board of education, finally got the apartment cleaned out Tuesday, right before the new guy came in on Wednesday.  Since I'm all moved out of the apartment, I'm sort of playing the Wandering Dutchman for this month, staying at friends' places here and there.  The plan was to spend most of the time at the girlfriends' place, which I think I will end up doing eventually, but as of now I've only spent one night there, as opposed to two nights at Mike's place in Ajimu, and one night at Harrison's place in Usa (the neighboring town).   Even though the new guy is here now, I'm still under contract until August 5th, and the Board of Education has asked me to stick around and help out with the transition.  Which I'm more than happy to do, but it means being in Ajimu during the day, while the girlfriend lives all the way out in Hita.  Which is why the past couple days I've just been crashing in the Ajimu-Usa area.

More good-bye parties.  Monday had a good-bye party with my English Conversation class.  Tuesday a good-bye party with the car company in Usa.  Also Tuesday night was Eion's big send-off.  Wednesday night I said good-bye to Jane.  All these good-byes can  get pretty draining.

This weekend was the Jamaican festival in the neighboring town of Innai.  I went to this festival 3 years ago when I first arrived, but the last couple summers I had been away (last summer I was in Hokkaido, the summer before that I went back home).   Anyway, really cool festival.  Lots of reggae and ska music.   My dancing was made fun of again, but it was a good time.

Went into the immigration office in Oita city yesterday to get my visa extended.  Boy was that a pain in the neck.  I had to fill out the same form 3 times.  The form I had filled out originally turned out to be out of date, so I had to fill it out again with the new form.  Then they realized they had given me the wrong form, so I had to fill it out again.  Same information each time,  just the heading on the form was different.  But I've got it all taken care of now.  Just waiting while the forms get processed.  Keeping my fingers crossed nothing goes wrong.

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