So after I make a big New Years resolution to be better about updating my blog regularly I don’t write in it for about a month. I’m sorry. Let me say it wasn’t my fault. There’s been a lot of darkness in my life and last month I had another bombshell dropped on me.  I’d talk more about it on here, but it’s a family matter and there are other people in my family who might not appreciate a lot of soul-bearing and my thoughts on personal issues. And I’m going to respect their wishes.

I will say that dealing with these issues while in a foreign country is not easy, though. You’re far away and it’s easy to close yourself off to everyone. Sadly, I’ve done that too much over here and I feel now like people never got a chance to know me. They just know this girl who’s quiet and lost in her own thoughts. I’m trying hard not to fall into that trap again. I’m trying to reach out to people this time instead, but it’s hard because people don’t always reach back. But I’ll survive, I always do. In the end that’s what I excel at. I’m not going to let other people’s stupid decisions get me down anymore. I’m going to make my own path out here and not fall into a pit of self pity again.

For my last weekend I spent it packing, going to Hoopfest, seeing a great comedy show and crying (as stated previously). Packing and cleaning are about as fun as anyone can imagine so I’ll let you all ponder how awesome it was for me on your own time. My family came out for the weekend for a special goodbye weekend to Spokane and as a surprise Father’s Day gift for my dad that my brother and I went in on – seeing Brian Regan live and in concert, but more on that later on to HOOPFEST! It was amazing. I loved watching all the three-on-three games and taking lots of touristy pictures of Spokane all in a tizzy. I listened to some live music, drank some cheap beer and cheered on random strangers to victory. I walked around with my dad, brother and a couple friends to watch all the festivities. It’s events like Hoopfest that make me glad I lived walking distance from downtown. I cannot imagine even trying to drive in that mess. I also got a little more familiar with North Monroe Street, which I had always avoided walking on before because of it’s proximity to the courthouse and the numerous bail bond and “antique” shops that lined it.

After Hoopfest my family and I went to the INB Performing Arts Center to see the show. It was great, Brian Regan is one of those comics who I’m glad I got to see live. I did get all fired up when during a bit about octopuses a girl in the audience shouted “it’s pronounced ‘octopi’” … no it’s not, it’s octopuses. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “octopus” is derived from a Greek word, not a Latin one, therefore it does not get a Latin pluralization. If you do feel weird about saying “octopuses” (as I sometimes do depending on the maturity level of  some of my friends) say “octopedes.” It’s a lot less common, but still more correct than octopi. Other than that, it was a great show.

Last weekend when all the world seemed to be going wrong I called my dad as a last-ditch effort to regain some sanity. He told me that it’s hard to believe when you’re at the lowest point in your life that things will ever look bright again, but if you persevere things do start to look up again.

Well it’s been almost a week and I can honestly say that things are definitely brighter than they were. I’m still working on not letting the shadows of what’ transpired, what I’ve learned and what I’ve said not consuming me. of course it’s hard when certain people only want to spread the toxicity from their own miserable existence into yours.

For those who don’t know, I’ve been going through some intense personal trials. Trials that have made me question everything that I thought I knew about myself and the people I love. For those who do know, thanks for being there for me, for being a (in many cases metaphorical) shoulder to cry on when I needed it and an open ear and heart for me. It brought me so much comfort to know that in the tough times you’re never truly alone and that support is there for you if you seek it out.

So just remember that there’s hope and that the good times will come again. And if it’s people who are getting you down, there’s nothing more satisfying than removing them from your phone, your Facebook and just your life in general. Life is too short to deal with people who only want to make you miserable.

Well, I’m back at my parents house in Renton and have been since Saturday. James and I have spent the whole week here to go to a friend’s wedding (with a codename I dare not write on the internet) and we decided to stick around for Thanksgiving. It’s been kind of nich, though I feel like I cheated the working world getting yet another week off for Thanksgiving like I did at WSU. But if it makes the working world feel any better, I had to buy a $130 dress that I’ll never wear again.

I’ve been doing my usual technical voodoo at home for my parents: uploading photos from their digital cameras to the computer (yes they still don’t know how to do this), Adding and Removing programs and defragmenting their dinosaur computer that they got when I was in 9th grade. After my technical witchcraftery was done, James and I spent our days going to downtown Seattle and Renton for fun and shopping. I’ve been taking advantage of the sagging economy and using all the coupons I found in The Seattle Times to get some early Christmas shopping done. I took James to the newly renovated Southcenter Mall and we didn’t get shot so I consider the trip to be a success. On a sad note, some of my mom’s students were at the mall the day of the shooting and they’ve had to bring in trauma counselors to work with the kids.

Work has been fine, we’ve made it through a “rough” period financially and are now back on track. Apparently all the departments are getting budgets and one of the items on the list is a new Mac for me. And not just any Mac this Mac. It’s so beautiful I want to fall asleep next to it.

Also everyone at work is equally stoked that Flash CS4 will come with bidirectional language support. I.E. We can do Arabic Flash presentations. We already were doing Arabic Flash presentations but now I don’t have to do the neat trick I learned that makes the presenations take twice as long to make, but it got us mucho dinero for our efforts.

I’ve been doing a lot of independent study of my Japanese. I’ve busted out my old Level 3 (my current Japanese level) textbooks and have been trying to work my way to understanding my Level 2 (a really freaking hard level) textbooks. I’ve been spending a lot of time brushing up on the basics. I changed my WordPress and Facebook default languages to Japanese (sorry if that’s confused anyone) to get some practice while I’m internetting. I’m also going to be taking some Chinese classes come January, which should also be a lot of fun and I’m hoping the readings will be easy since I already no a lot of the characters.

Well, that’s what’s been going on with me. I’ll try to be better about updating this more so I can keep in touch with everyone.

P.S. Kaci, if you’re reading this, we need to get together and soon. For realsies.