Happenings.

1. I may have gotten absolutely nothing accomplished this week because the temperature has been hovering around 90* and the humidity is like living in a swamp and I'm dying.



2. I grew up without air conditioning. When we moved into our first house in California and it had air conditioning, I may have joked with Jeff about becoming high maintenance and refusing to live in any house without air conditioning ever again...

And then we moved to Japan.

No a/c in housing.



3. Life laughed at me. I may have cursed back a lot this week.



4. I cannot determine if the heat or my lack of a green thumb is killing some of my plants.

Flowers that looked like this...



...do not anymore.



5. This is my new favorite picture.



It has nothing to do with the heat or my questionable thumb. But it is a change, because my husband is actually smiling. He never smiles. He silently curses my camera any time I pull it out. This was date night and he's grumbling behind his smile, I promise.



6. I still love my short hair. Its never-ending battle to curl weirdly is tiring with all this humidity, but we're getting along for now.





7. I've been working at 0600 every day. That means I leave the house at 0545, which means I'm up before 0500.

In case you've never met me in the morning, I am no morning person. My own husband refuses to talk to me until I talk to him. I may have bitten his head off for that offense a few times in our first year of marriage. He's learned.

Anyways, when we used to live and work in California, we'd be out the house in our one car at 0600. I'd drop him off at work then commute the hour to my school and work. It was dark until I hit campus usually. And a lot of days we wouldn't get home until it was dark.

Now, I get views like this first thing in the morning.



I guess in the East the sun really does rise earlier. I don't mind it one bit.

I also get off work early enough to get a full afternoon of sunshine to play with. Yesterday I went to the beach after work. Happiness.



8. I keep finding excuses to sit on the couch in front of the fan and continue to avoid doing anything productive. Like stopping to write this basically useless blog post. Hm. I should probably turn off the TV and computer. Or I could continue watching the Daily Show...

Working with Yen

America is no longer a cash economy. It's all on credit. We use credit cards for gas, food, bills, gum, and anything else we happen to need at any given moment. Some people use their credit cards to pull out cash for the week, but most prefer to use plastic. Either the debit or credit variety, Americans always have those cards handy.

Japanese do not.



Japan is a cash country. Actual paper and coin money.

Shopping on base is simple. American currency, American debit and credit cards, American merchandise (in the BX anyways, we get Japanese produce). Ta-da. Not rocket science.

But stepping off base takes a little more thinking.

Step one involves deciding how much money we actually need. Jeff and I both prefer cards to cash, so we hardly ever carry cash. When we go off base, our first stop is always the ATM to pick up some yen. ATM's on base (both Navy Federal and a bank affiliate of Bank of America) offer both American dollars and Japanese yen.



But wait.

That currency conversion rate is still in the way. $1 American dollar does NOT equal 1 Japanese Yen. Today, it's more like $1 American dollar is equal to 77 Japanese yen.



Need a quick math lesson? I do.

$1 -- 77 yen
$5 -- 385 yen
$10 -- 770 yen
$20 -- 1540 yen
$30 -- 2310 yen
$40 -- 3080 yen
$50 -- 3850 yen

No, I'm not able to do that math in my head most days. Yes, I always get confused and have to stop and think when converting dollar to yen and back again. I usually go by approx. 1 dollar to 100 yen, but you can obviously see that's inaccurate. Sometimes we pull out our cell phones and use the calculator, and sometimes I just leave it up to Jeff to figure everything out ;)



I'm slowly getting used to dealing with yen and adjusting to the conversion rate. Luckily it only shifts 1 or 2 digits from week to week. It makes my wallet bulky and confusing when I have both dollars and yen stuffed in there, along with the change from both.

And Japanese currency comes with a lot of change. I'm not a change person. It weighs down my wallet. I don't have the patience to count out change at the register. So having change up to 500 yen is a little different. I can pay for dinner entirely in change, even at an actual restaurant. It blows my mind just a little.



Jeff and I both started dumping our change as soon as we get home. So I put out small bowls to collect our change. They're getting a little full. We're going to invest in some larger collection bins/pots/bowls/etc. to collect our American and Japanese coins. We figure at the end of three years here, we should have a decent collection of each.

Just a quick discussion about one necessary inconvenience of living overseas. Obviously I would prefer to stick with one currency, but I'm sure within another six months I won't even have to think twice about using yen.

But for the past six months, it's been an adjustment. One of the little things about living overseas that everyone knows about, but maybe don't think about too often. I don't, unless I have to. Like when I have the urge to go buy new flowers for my balcony or try some delicious Japanese food.

Happy Sunday!

Books and Movies

I haven't blogged much about what I've been reading lately. The amount of books I'm reading has lessened since I started working, but it definitely hasn't stopped.

My memory of what I've read the past few weeks however...



Anyways, I've been reading more Phillipa Gregory. Always a fan. I preferred The Queen's Fool to The Virgin's Lover. I thought it had a much richer context of growing up to become a woman and having to deal with marriage, men, and living in that society. Both books provided a pretty good description of how challenging being royal or powerful must be, how easy it is to have good intentions go down the drain, and how manipulation is almost always necessary. If you haven't started reading Phillipa Gregory, you should probably give her books a chance sometime. I have The White Queen sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read.



I bought this one from a friend without really reading the description or knowing the author. I figured I'll give anything a shot. I actually really enjoyed it though. I don't know much about French history, but it was interesting to dive into the past and see what was going on. The references to England's royalty and happenings were especially colorful after getting my fill of British royalty with Phillipa Gregory's books. But it's an interesting love story and depiction again of royal life and the balancing act between personal and public responsibilities and desires. Definitely worth a look.



I've never been a big Nicholas Sparks fan, but a friend recommended this one so I gave it a try. I'd say it wasn't anything extraordinary or ground-breaking, but it was a good read. It at least has a different story than his usuals. And it had captivating main characters, although the descriptions of the abusive ex-husband fell flat for me - I think he depended too much on the deeply religious view of the world without digging into the character's personality enough. But like I said, it's a good, quick read. Perfect for a summer weekend or the like.


We've been seeing some movies in theaters lately too. The movie theater on base is fairly affordable, although it has limited options and times and the movies are usually delayed a few weeks from opening dates back in the states. Still, we can both see a movie with popcorn and soda for around $20, which isn't possible in the states.



I loved Something Borrowed when I first read it. I also loved its sister, Something Blue. So of course I had to watch the movie! I think they chose perfect actors for each role, and I think it was a good interpretation of the book. It was cute and funny and emotional without being over the top in any department. Loved it.



I went into Bridesmaids expecting a funny chick flick. It's SO much more than that! I could not stop laughing, and my laughter was definitely not alone in the theater. The ladies that played in this movie are hilarious alone, and an excellent combination. Can not wait to buy it and make my husband watch it. He rolled his eyes when I said I wanted to go see it, but I think I'll get the last laugh when I force him to watch it and he loves it. Probably my favorite movie of the year.




Not much else has been going on in life lately. Lots of reading and movie watching and relaxing in between the chaos of working with kids all through their summer vacation. Everyone at my work is impatiently counting down the weeks until school begins again.

Have a good weekend!