...130802, 1722hr, central time...

yes, i know i've disappeared for some days now.

it's amazing how i'm busier now than when i still had to go to school. there's much of the administrative stuff to be done, for my japan trip. it's ridiculous how i still don't have my visa. it's a long story to tell, but basically i only managed to send my application off to the japanese embassy in chicago yesterday, let's hope it's efficient enough to get my visa and passport back to my by next week. the IES office keeps emailing me to tell me what documents i have missing, when i'm so sure i already had them submitted and it's unsettling to know they don't have my job or housing placements ready yet (since it's only now they asked for those "missing" documents). i thought this was a pretty good program, IES seemed rather organized, but now it looks like i may be wrong. they seem to be doing a lot of last-minute work (not to mention forcing me to do last minute work on my visa too) so suddenly i'm kinda apprehensive.

i also spent the last 5 days moving house. right now i'm staying at the saf guys' place (though i guess now that eng guan's gone the name will have to change..) it seems like such a simple phrase eh? "moving house". crap, it's so so so difficult. a 3-part process, we had to pack, move, and clean. the packing, i probably should have done earlier, both for myself, and for the general house items. it took a longer time than i thought it would. i had to pack according to what i would need for japan, what i would need for the next weeks, and what i will not need till i get back here next year. the moving, i was quite handicapped, because of my ankle, so i left it mostly to the guys, and chee wai's friends.

the cleaning process was painful, because the house was absolutely filthy. taking over the house from the seniors, we were basically responsible for cleaning away about 3 years worth of filth. which honestly took a lot of courage - say it after me: it's not as gross as it looks, it's not as gross as it looks... a lot of energy, and a lot of determination. i was especially pissed off with people who left their rooms in a mess, or even left anything behind in their rooms, without telling us what to do with them. though throwing away someone's crap doesn't sound like much, it is a irritating, to have to do it. the amount of trash we threw out in one day is ridiculous - by estimation, probably at least 8 carloads worth of them. at least. irritating.

sidat wasn't able to come back till about 1am, and we were supposed to move out by 9am, monday morning. so while saturday was spent packing and doing some initial cleaning, the entire day of sunday was spent moving and final cleaning, leaving the wee morning hours for helping sidat pack, and clean his room. i was so dead beat from cleaning the rest of the house though, by the time he got back, i didn't help out with his room at all. i am still rather proud though, that my friends and i managed to pull it all off.

so, now, what's next? i have about 1.5 weeks to count down to japan. within these 1.5 weeks, i will have to run all administrative errands, get all my things settled to be stored at priya and debbie's place, revise more of my japanese, and get done with the batchbook. thankfully i'm almost ready to move over to happyclams, so i should get it done soon.

i'm still very tired. and sidat says he can tell (from the hair i left in the bathroom) that i'm very stressed. yes, actually i am. because suddenly i'm lost. uprooted from my basement i called home, now i'm living out of suitcases, trying to make sense of what i need to get done, and trying to actually find time to get them done. there's no more structure to my life, both in terms of time, and physical surroundings. today, on my way home today, i made a wrong turn and went back towards my ex-house rather than the apartment. it felt weird.

i'll make more sense tomorrow, i promise. i also promise to be back tomorrow - it feels horrible to look back on my life in the past week and not remember exactly how my days went.