I'm Official

For a few years now, I have been stalking the domain maggiesmind.com for what should be a pretty obvious reason. Nothing was being done with it, but it was registered to someone else. Last night while wasting time online under my warm kotatsu, I looked again, just on a whim. And guess what?! It was available. So now it's mine all mine. You can still get here the old way, but it will redirect you to the new way at MaggiesMind.com. As far as I know, if you are kind enough to be subscribed to this blog (thank you!), you shouldn't have to do anything. Maybe. Oh, hopefully.

Guess this means I should consider getting back into blogging somewhat more regularly again. I might, though it will still likely be somewhat sporadic. No promises and all of that. I enjoy the freedom.

While we are here, I'll give a quick update.

So, yah, it's winter in Japan again. There is still no heat at my school. Daytime temps have been around 45F/7C (sometimes colder) which is fine when you have heat and surprisingly chilly when you don't. I wear layers. I've rekindled my love of knit tights that I hadn't worn since I was about four years old. Some days I wear more than one pair (this year they have some of the footless ones available, too, which is nice as the second layer). I feel fortunate that one room of my apartment has a really decent wall unit heater/AC. The good news is that I spend most of my time in this room. The bad news is that it is not in the same room as my shower. I do have a kerosene heater in my kitchen, though, so that when I exit my shower into my kitchen, my bits and parts don't freeze off.

Christmas is coming. Most of my lessons recently have been dedicated to educating the youth of Tiny Town that they do Christmas wrong we do Christmas differently in my country. They seem genuinely shocked that we do not eat KFC on Christmas Eve or Day, among other things mentioned in passing at the link above. I got a care package the other day from my favorite former JET and Irish friend who lives in Okinawa near one of the US military bases and where all things American are available for purchase if you have friends on the inside. She does. She took a guess about what I might miss, and I now have candy canes, eggnog (you can get it in a can - who knew?) and a huge smile.

Winter vacation is almost here. Japan basically shuts down for a few days for New Year's. I mean like shuts. down. There is the possibility of no access even to the ATM for a few days. Last year around this time I did a big travel thing to Nagasaki, Beppu and Matsuyama. It cost just a little less than a plane ticket home would have. This year I'm all about saving money with this continued excellent exchange rate, so this year I am sticking a little more local. I'm just doing an overnight in Osaka at a capsule hotel so that I can check it off my list and also probably a big shrine visit on New Year's Eve since it's the Japanese thing to do and something I've never really done (other than a very tiny local shrine once years ago). I'm also signed up for a morning of pounding the living hell out of special rice in order to turn it into mochi at a mochi making event (mochitsuki), another huge tradition in Japan that I've yet to experience. So I have a few things going on, but I'll mostly be taking a relaxing breather and hanging out at home or venturing just to super local places (like nearby cities that have Starbucks and other coffee shops). Cheap and heavenly. I might treat myself to a massage. We'll see.

And, so, that's what's going on here.