Now that I look at the title I gave this entry, I’m a little embarrassed with myself. Ha.

The last two weeks or so have been pretty good. I finished up my old job at the head office on the 2nd, an overall short day because I was only in the office from about 10AM to 3:30PM, with about 30 minutes in there for lunch. It was also a mega busy day, with reports and text material for a mini-course I was writing to be finished. I was pretty much either cleaning stuff up on my computer or in my desk or typing away at my keyboard the entire day. Headed out of the office to go teach way up in northern Chiba, and got back around 9PM. Had a small party at Umaimonya as a kind of “graduation” party. It was strange to think that I’m done with that company, having worked there for so long. OK I guess it wasn’t really that long, but even my time at the head office seemed a lot longer than it actually was. Not in a bad way really – I just felt comfortable working here after less than a year.

Now for the change. I’ve started working for this new company, and from home! It’s a totally different industry, and I’m working on developing the business side since the company is really young and new. There’s a potential for more travel this year, and I’ll be staying here in Japan for the time being. First things to be done are the basics like a company logo, website, reading through a bunch of technical and scientific documents, and in general just trying to get myself settled into a new line of work. Working at home and with flexitime is of course awesome, but also as expected pretty difficult to stay focused. Since a lot of my work is done sitting in my apartment at the computer, the exact same environment that I’m usually in when relaxing at home, it’s tough to switch to work mode. Like right now. I’m slowly getting acclimated to it, and it’s nice to be working in a job where I have more freedom and impact. This is definitely making me want to move to a bigger apartment where I can have a nice desk setup though.

Other than working, I guess there’s nothing super interesting going on. Went out the other night with Brian and Andy, which was nothing out of the ordinary, until we were talking outside of AMPM and this weird drunk hobo (I think) in a yellow coat started talking to us. The guy couldn’t speak English at all, and we all pretty much acted like we didn’t understand Japanese, just saying stupid stuff to him to amuse ourselves. I guess that’s happened quite a few times in the past too, right? Well somehow we ended up talking to this guy for like 3 hours, hanging outside near AMPM and the 24-hour McDonald’s. I guess it was kind of a fun way to spend the night, but after a while we were all getting tired of this weird hobo yet couldn’t shake him. I remember when the other guys both escaped into McD’s, leaving me stranded with the hobo. As soon as I realized that I was stuck, I went and found the guys. We thought we were safe. The we looked behind us at the window and realized he was right behind us. Then he came in and continued his “conversation.” I think hobos love talking to foreigners late at night.