A Summary of Past Events

Okay, so it's been a while since my last update. Quite a while. Not a single post in all of November or this half of December. That's very bad of me, I know. From now on, I promise to try to be more diligent.

Since my last post... too many things have happened for me to actually be able to write about them all. So please allow this post to mostly be an attempt at summarizing what have happened since my last post. And so, in the manner of "first things first", let's begin with the grand event of the month! Last month, I mean. I moved to Ikebukuro-honcho!!

The new apartment is great. A few of you have seen it already, at the moving in party. The rest of you should really come to see it soon, because it's really nice. A bit too cold now in winter, perhaps, and the power overloads much too easily, but other than that it is very nice indeed. It is the largest apartment I have ever had, even if you divide the total area by three to take into account the fact that I am sharing it with my two friends Legato and Linus.

I love the location this close to central Tokyo.  The gas stove is also very much to my liking (as are most of the other furniture and appliances that came with the place), but I do miss  a proper oven where I could bake cakes and cookies and gingerbread and ... and so on. The bedroom tatami floors are also great, if perhaps a bit cold this time of year, and our collection of plants have now grown to a total of five - including a palmtree. Should soon be time for number six. Our walls are now, to Linus' great regret, adorned by posters advertising various musicals such as Wicked and The Phantom of the Opera. But what did he expect when moving in with two musical loving people?

Alexandra had her leaving party sometime early November. It was a very small and cozy event taking place in Matsudo guesthouse, with only her closest of friends attending. Though normally guests are not allowed to stay after six, I had managed to get special permission to do, allowing me to be there and say my proper goodbyes before she left us all for the cold reaches of Sweden. Before she left she was really looking forward to coming home, but once she got there it didn't take many days before she really wanted to go back, so fortunately I expect to see her back in these parts of the world before long.

The next person to leave was Malin, around the end of that same month. Her goodbye party was considerably more extravagant, with a whole bunch of people, including two of our teachers, going to eat and drink in Shinjuku Kabukichou. That was followed by a night of karaoke - which of course is the thing to do in Japan. When you're not shopping, out clubbing, or otherwise spending your money on any of the varieties of kickass entertainment available here - the best to be found anywhere in the world.

In November was also Claudias birthday party, as well as the moving in party I briefly mentioned before. Other than these two events though, not much at all has happened in the way of partying or going out meeting new people lately.  The falling Swedish krona has made sure of that. Seriously, whenever has there been a more worthless currency? Sure, the Euro has fallen against the yen as well, as have the Korean won and most other currencies in the world, but none of them has fallen anywhere as much as the Swedish krona, I believe.

There is something rotten lurking just beneath the surface of the Swedish economy, I tell you. It has been lurking there for decades, making sure the country never rise to greatness. And now, in the midst of this global economical crisis, that rotten thing is quickly strangling the Swedish economy, dragging it down like a giant rock tied to a sinking ship. What this rotten thing is called is socialism, and if the Swedish people ever want to be a nation with anything but the most rudimentary kind of status in the world, they'd better heed my word and get rid of it as soon as they can.

In truth, I do not care about what they do. I am done with Sweden, never intending to go back as long as I have any kind of choice in the matter. Asia is my home, now and forever. I may spend a few years in New York or London or wherever my heart will take me for a while, but I doubt that I will ever leave the Asian continent permanently.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Where was I? Oh, yes, parties. And clubbing, going shopping with friends, hanging out in coffee shops, or just generally hanging out downtown. As all of that tend to cost more money than I currently have at my disposal, I haven't really had the opportunity to do very much of it this last month or two, unfortunately enough.

What I have done, on the other hand, is registering with a few more modelling agencies. I think I am registered with seven of them now. Nothing has come from it so far - but I have an audition for a TV commercial coming up this Saturday, followed by a small job as an extra in a Japanese TV drama on Sunday. Hopefully things will start rolling on from there. I do know I could really use the money.

I got notice from CSN a week or so ago, that apparently I will only be able to borrow about half of the money needed for tuition fees to the University of Hong Kong. Which means eather my modelling career really takes of from here on, allowing me to earn the money needed that way, or I stay in Japan for couple more years, working my way to sufficient amounts of cash the old fashioned way. Needless to say I would prefer the former, even though the idea of staying in Tokyo for a while does have its own kind of charm.

A week or two ago my computer suddenly decided to break down. Got it back today, to my great relief. And to the great relief of Legato as well, whose computer I have been occupying more than he would have preferred. What really makes me happy is the fact that all my pictures and the rest of the stuff on my hard drive was still there! I hadn't expected that, as they told me they might have had to restore the whole thing to scratch. But apparently that wasn't necessary. :D

I wrote the JLPT last weekend, by the way. The Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Level 3, to be precise. Sarah and I have a bet worth a thousand yen in effect about who gets the better result on that test. And to Sarah's great misfurtune, though of course she wont admit it until we get the actual results, those thousand yen will be mine. She knows more kanji than me, admittedly, and has a larger vocablulary as well. But I have my strong points in the grammar, and I did score really well on the other parts as well - I am sure of that. The next great challange is the level 2 test next year. It's supposedly considerably harder - but I am intent on passing it the first chance I get.

Now I can't actually come up with anything more to write about... except that I will soon need to open that Japanese bank account I have been planning to open for some time now. So with that said, I suppose I will now take my leave, get some dinner, and start studying. Cause I still haven't done that today. Should I remember anything else of interest that happened last month, I will let you know. And I do promise to be more active from now on in letting you know of my future advetures in this beautiful city. I wish you all a continued good day.