(Almost) pointless Nagano trip

Today was fairly productive but also frustrating. I went to Nagano to get my visa renewed. Before I left I got some documents from the city hall, and told the clerk that helped me that I was born in the Meiji era (1868-1912), to my embarrassment . I've decided that I need to laugh more at my mistakes, and proclaim them boldly when they're honest. Anyway, next I took the train to Matsumoto, and asked about  the used electric violin that I had found. It turns out that it comes with neither case nor bow, which is expected but inconvenient.

In Nagano I got my documents submitted in about 10 minutes--really fast. Since I was there, a two hour train ride from Shiojiri, I decided to look around for electric violins and accessories. The first place only had violin kits and no electrics. The second place had nothing anywhere near my price range. Next I went to three second-hand stores. The first was promising as it had several acoustic violins. Unfortunately there were no electrics. I saw no bows being sold independently, and the cases didn't have price tags on them either, if they were even violin cases at all. From there I walked about a mile and a half from the station. My feet were hurting and my allergies were blazing. The second shop turned out to only sell used clothes. It was close to the third shop, which had very little hobby items at all, and no musical instruments. I sneezed all the way back to the train station, where I bought some snacks and ravenously devoured them as I boarded the train. There was another music shop in the train station, but I was hungry and sneezing and figured that with its location, it would probably be small and expensive.

I read fanfiction and fell asleep on the way home. When I got home around 5:45 I ate dinner, played some Factorio, ordered a violin bow and rosin, then fell asleep before 10. I really didn't do anything productive related to my goals.

Schedule change

I went to catch my train to church today at the same time as usual. I scanned my train card, then checked the platform of my train. But there was no train leaving at the right time. I checked google maps, and it also showed no train leaving for Shimosuwa for almost an hour. At that point I went to the help desk and asked for a reset of my train card. I walked home confused, thinking that I had remembered my train time incorrectly, maybe off by a couple minutes. When I got home and checked the schedule, it turned out that the train time was 18 minutes earlier than the time I remembered. Obviously the train schedule had changed. Although this was not a good thing today, the new time is much more convenient. Right now I can either get to church 50 minutes early or five minutes late (reduced to two or three if I jog from the station, which I usually do). The new time puts me at church 5 minutes before the service with a leisurely walk.

Also I chatted with Josh Jackson before church. It was good to hear his news.

Japanese

I really did not want to study today...

Programming

So I didn't do programming or Japanese.

Health

None

Spiritual

None

Writing

Journal: 30 minutes

Career

None

Housework

Cleaning: 30 min
Cooking: 10 min
Laundry: 5 min
Cleaned out almost all the empty bottles.

Reading

None

Social

20 min
Messaged with Josh Jackson.

Elementary School Graduation

At the junior high school, almost all of the students cried on their last day at some point. At the elementary school I only saw a few third and fifth graders crying. For me it was more emotional though, maybe because elementary students are cuter and I'm slightly more attached to them. There is an actual ceremony (relatively short though, at about 30 minutes) to say goodbye to the teachers leaving. Because the elementary school isn't my base school, it's not official that I won't return next year, though it's a pretty sure thing because it's so close to the junior high school. Because it isn't official though, I wasn't able to actually say goodbye, which made me sad.

Every teacher leaving gives a speech at this ceremony. The third-grade teacher had only worked at the school for a year, but during her speech she started crying (she was the only one of all the teachers at either school to do this). At this point I started crying too.

I have a lot of things I need and want to buy. In the evening I went out to look at what second-hand shops had for instruments that I am interested in. The first shop had a Yamaha electric violin, basically the cheapest brand name electric violin which is unfortunately not so cheap--about $800 retail, and more in America. At the secondhand shop it was half-price, and looked brand new. If I had had the money, I might have bought it right then and there.

Japanese

Reading: 10 minutes
Notes from students and school missives.

Programming

None

Health

Walked a lot today, but I'm not counting that.

Spiritual

None

Writing

Journal: 5 minutes

Career

None

Housework

Cleaning: 5 min

Reading

Every Good Endeavor: 60 min
Almost finished. 

Social

None

Junior High Graduation

Junior high school graduation was today. There were many tears. I was given a bunch of very nice notes from the students. I also met with Takashi about doing orientation for the new teachers. He asked me to work on Sunday and for some reason I was unable to say no. I gave two speeches today--one a farewell speech to the whole school, and one of them just to the faculty and the drinking party. Both speeches were well received, and at least two of the students also told their younger siblings about my speech.

I'm investigating buying an electric violin.

Japanese

Reading: 15 minutes
Notes from students and school missives.

Programming

None

Health

None

Spiritual

None

Writing

Journal: 5 minutes

Career

None

Housework

Cleaning: 5 min
Laundry: 5 min

Reading

60 min
Continued Every Good Endeavor. There was an interesting point made, but for the most part I had a difficult time concentrating.

Social

5.5 hours
Farewell party with the junior high teachers and karaoke afterwards.

Last day at Kikyo

Today I was banzai'd as I left the school. I also gave a brief speech as the entire teacher's room stood up and listened to me. I didn't do a good job. Also, I planned to write thank-you cards to the homeroom teachers, but I couldn't figure out what to write on, so I never ended up doing it. I hope I will still have the chance, because the notes are mostly written anyway (albeit in English, so I have to translate them).

Japanese

Reading: 45 minutes
Alternated between reading notes that my students wrote to me and reading essays by the junior high school students. I had surprisingly little difficulty with the latter.

Programming

None

Health

Bicycle: 20 minutes
Climbing: 110 minutes
Did a cool red level problem today (B Red 7). Also finished all the parts to another cool-looking red problem (B Red 10), but there are several parts that I can't do consistently. I discovered that it is a terrible thing to have nails that are too long when climbing. Surprisingly, today was the first time that I noticed.

Spiritual

None

Writing

Journal: 25 minutes

Career

None

Housework

Cleaning: 10 min

Reading

None

Social

None

Last day of junior high classes

My last day of junior high classes was surprisingly normal. My assistant English teacher is moving to a new school, so he made some farewell remarks. The eighth graders gave us both a bunch of thank you notes. Aside from that, nothing at all happened or was said.

I've been thinking about buying a digital piano. Apparently my new place has neighbors that are quite noise-sensitive, so if I want to play music the only real solution is a digital piano. Though now that I think about it, maybe I could look into an electric violin... but anyway, I discovered that the one I want, which I think is the same one I had in Russia, only costs about $360 (without accessories, which I expect I can easily get from a second-hand shop). I was tempted to go ahead and order it, but I decided to make sure the second-hand shop had what I needed so that I could order it too if necessary. And now I think I'll research electric violins as well. The second-hand shop might even have one of those.

My long evening class was cancelled, but I spent the time reading fanfiction instead of working on something productive.

Japanese

None

Programming

Hackerrank: 10 minutes
I solved a recursion problem in a couple of minutes, then spent the rest of the time beating my head against a binary conversion problem. I don't think I had the right mindset at the time.

Health

None, not even tennis

Spiritual

None

Writing

Blog entry and previous day's entry: 60 minutes
(Most of an) email to Shane: 30 minutes

Career

None

Housework

Cleaning: 10 min

Reading

Every Good Endeavor: 60 min
I realized that (this part of) the book focuses more on how to be a Christian in a work environment and less on actually finding work. It answered a lot of questions that I wouldn't think to ask because I've never really questioned how to do my work in a Christian way. So it was somewhat interesting but not very relevant to me.

Social

None

Recovery

Four weeks later and after too many hours in Factorio, I have returned to my previously intended pursuits. I don't know how long it will last because this is my final week at school. The following three weeks will be very irregular, and my new schools may put me off-guard, but in the meantime I'll do my best to aim for my goals, at the very least by keeping the blog.

Japanese

Reading: 25 minutes
Steins;Gate. I need to get back into the habit, as I found myself frustrated by my inability to read fluidly several times, and the time I spent felt closer to double that.

Programming

None

Health

None

Spiritual

I looked for ways to read the Bible, but was unable to find anything satisfactory.

Writing

None (next day entry)

Career

None

Housework

Cleaning: 10 min
Cooking: 10 min

Reading

Every Good Endeavor: 60 min
Tim Keller's book about vocation. I listened in the car on the way to and from work. It got really philosophical. It may be because I took a long break since the last time I listened, but I feel like this book has been the most disjointed and least helpful related to the topic.

Social

None