What the hell...?

I think my body is in its own time zone.

I'll beak it down for you. The first couple of days on ABC, I managed to gain THREE pounds. It was probably a late gain from all the Southern Comfort I had on New Year's eve, but I gained and it was depressing just the same, and demotivating, and I didn't want to mention it here because gaining weight, even when I'm actively restricting, tastes like failure and it's embarassing. But for the sake of full disclosure and honesty - and hey, when I have to admit it and be truthful, I'm less likely to fuck up because I have to answer to you guys! - there it is. A couple days late, but whatever.

Then to make matters worse, yesterday I was at home all day with my aunt and I will admit: I binged.

And when I say I binged I don't mean I ate a couple of cookies and a sandwich. By my calculations, my total calorie intake was around 2,000. So I consumed FOUR times the amount I was allotted on ABC.

But the fucked up part? I've LOST a little over a pound. Maybe eating a "normal" amount of calories for the first time in a long time has woken up my metabolism a little? Maybe the fact that the night before last and last night, I had my first two consecutive DECENT NIGHTS' SLEEP in years helped? Fuck me, I have no idea. And I'll probably wake up tomorrow 5lbs heavier, but right now this just feels totally bizarre, and I do not understand one bit.

Today is okay so far. 200 Calorie cap for today, and I've only had some low-cal soup with a couple crackers and a load of Pepsi Max. I'm not hungry in the slightest so will probably skip dinner, have a shower shortly, and go to bed early.

I didn't have to go to work today, since the snow is still pretty bad up here, and our road is a mess of ice, snow, and slush. And I don't live near the main road where I catch my bus to work, so I called and said I couldn't make it (my manager seemed ok with it, I felt bad and was all apologetic, but he was like "You can't help it!"). It's been snowing on and off kinda heavily again today, but I'll probably have to go in tomorrow all the same. In spite of the fact that I have no boots, my "winter" coat is thinner than half of the hoodies I own, and I've no gloves to my name either since I lost them on the bus last year and haven't found a new pair I like enough to buy...

So, back to work tomorrow. Which is depressing in itself, sigh.

I'm sure there was something else I was going to write about here today, but I really can't remember. So I think I'm going to have a shower, maybe a nap, and then straighten my hair for work tomorrow. And maybe even give myself a much-needed manicure. FUN TIMES WHUT.

Also: I love how I keep saying I can't afford a pair of boots because the ones I like are all upwards of £100, yet I have no qualms with the fact that the list of cosmetics I'm ordering from MAC's two new limited edition collections tomorrow comes to just under £120. I'm such a hypocrite. And makeup obsessed.

I should make one of my New Year's Resolutions to try to cut my makeup spending, even by a third. Lord knows I could use the money (and I pretty desperately need some new bedroom furniture, since the shit I bought from Argos a year and a half ago is basically falling apart at this point.)

Anyway, I'm rambling again. I'm off now!

Contemplating Change

After all the time I've bitched about my job, especially the stress that's been added lately, it's clearly past time to make a change. I've accepted the fact that the next month or monthS will be spent applying for a thousand jobs that pay barely more than half what I'm bringing home now, going on interviews or never hearing back before I finally found something. I'm resigned to the fact that the only other alternative is hating my job and letting it make me near-suicidally depressed in my home life too.

But, I've been thinking about alternatives. One of the dudes who works in my old team told me last week that he's leaving. He's going back to university (he already has a degree which he has never and will never use) and is going to work for his dad in the meantime. We had a very brief email exchange at work early last week, and it's gotten me thinking.

I told him that, if there was something that really interested me, I would go to university. That the only reason I'm not at school right now is that I don't know "what I want to be when I grow up."

But, is that entirely true?

I told my aunts ages ago that I was looking into Japanese Studies courses. I'm fascinated by Japanese culture and want to learn the language badly. But at the time the only means of studying not-on-my-own was a £660/week private tutor. That's more than half the money I'm bringing home right now, whatthefuck. So I put it off.

But tonight whilst randomly searching the internet, I stumbled across a website for a school in Japan that will sponsor foreign students for a 2 year student Visa to live and study Japanese at their school.

And then I happened to discover that one of our two Universities right here in the city - the same University, in fact, that I applied to two years ago and would have been accepted and offered a place at had I attended the open day and not withdrawn my application - does, in fact, have a Japanese Studies course. In fact, it has several combined courses, ranging from Japanese Studies with *insert other language here* to more practical applications like business classes.

I find myself sitting here seriously considering my options. Just a couple of weeks ago, my aunt asked me if I didn't want to be studying right now. She said "Now's the time to do it, while you're living with family and don't have a mortgage or anything to pay for."

Regardless of which school I applied to, if I were accepted the school tuition/facility/etc fees would be between £10,000-15,000. (A two year course at the school in Tokyo is around £10,000 plus room and board and money to spend, and the one here is a 4-year-course-with-one-year-study-in-Japan and the tuition is £3,225 a year)

If I had money lying around I would do it. As it is, I'm terrified that I'll apply and get rejected. Or that I'll apply, get accepted, be declined for bursaries because they're decided on your "household income" and J is on the same wage I am right now, and my aunt is bringing in ten grand a year more than either of us. Or that I'll get accepted and wind up not getting approved for student loans because of my nearly £5,000 of credit card debt (although my credit can't be THAT bad since my bank randomly appear to have increased my credit limit by £1,400 two weeks ago).

I think what this boils down to is fear.

Fear of independence.
Fear of being out in the world on my own.
Fear of failure.
Fear of change.

Just fear in all its forms.

But more and more lately I've been thinking that this is something I really want to do. I want to become fluent in the Japanese language, I want to learn its history and all about its culture and its people. And more recently I've been thinking that, one day I would really actually love to LIVE there.

But I'm also scared that this is a phase. It's something that I've been very into for the past year, but what if suddenly I wake up and it's just a passing fancy? Like every other fucking hobby or interest I've had in my life. Even my writing - the book I wanted so badly to get published before I'm 30... Well, it's still an ambition I have but I haven't written more than a several-page generic email in the past God only knows how long.

I don't want to take a risk and make a jump and wind up wasting it and regretting it.

But maybe this is fate, if you believe in fate. I've finally found something that - right now at least - I really, really want to do. And in the same breath I'm thrust into a position at work that I would almost rather cease to exist at all than remain in. I'm basically being forced out of the career I've had for the past four years, and my choices at this point are find another full time admin job, or get something part-time and go to fucking school already.

I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I can't make big decisions on my own, yet at the same time I'm the only one who CAN make this decision for me. Even my decision to move halfway around the world was made completely on impulse - an impulse I haven't regretted, mind, but impulse all the same.

Maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe what I need to do is just... leap. Jump into the unknown, and if it falls apart, I'm no worse off (except a little older and more in debt.)

Fuck me. I don't know what to do.