Time flies

Wow it's already been over a month since I left Japan and returned to Britain. Not that nothing has happened since I came back, it's just that I can't really write about the same stuff as I used to write about when I was in Japan. From time to time I would have periods of depression because I miss my friends too much. It's especially bad when the photos I ordered arrived in the post, and I pinned each photo onto the noticeboard in my room, and all those memories come rushing into my mind and explode in tears.

There's been a lot of frustration regarding university, which I shall discuss further later this week. Before classes started it was about looking for a part-time job. I got rejection from Harvey Nichols, Boots, and the Manchester Museum. Still haven't heard anything from H&M or Selfridges. But anyway I now have a regular part-time job (in addition the occasional student ambassador stuff I do at the University). When I was looking for jobs I thought of place where I can practice Japanese, so I wrote to Samsi (a Japanese restaurant in Manchester owned by two Britons) and asked if they had any vacancies in their basement shop (I didn't want to do waitressing - I didn't have a good time at the Midland 2 years ago, except for the occasional celebrity sightings such as David Cameron and Martine McCutcheon). And the owner replied and soon offered me a part-time position after a very brief interview.

A couple of weeks ago I did an evening of training, shadowing the other staff, learned how to use the cashier etc. Today was my first formal, 10-hour shift. God it was exhausting! At times it's really quiet, 'cause the shop is in the basement and only patrons of the restaurant and people who know the place would come in to buy Japanese snacks and cooking ingredients. But today, apart from using the cashier, credit/debit card machine, replenishing the shelves, I also cleaned out a fridge (some idiot had turned the power off over the weekend so the fridge was filled with mouldy food and stank real bad), cleaned a sink (again stank like hell), took out rubbish, washed up a few dishes and mopped the floor. I'm pretty sure those things were not in the job description. But then there wasn't really a job description, or a contract or anything in print. I won't even get paid by bank transfer. They pay in cash apparently. The advantage is that I won't have to pay tax/NI contributions on it, the disadvantage being there's no legal protection. One of the perks of the job (in addition to the 20% off staff discount) was the free meal. It's nothing fancy but today I had grilled salmon bento, which would normally cost around £5.

The salmon, the Japanese food and snacks (Pretz, Pocky and the Koala chocolate etc.) in which I'm surrounded - all remind me of the wonderful year I had in Japan. It's very, very hard not to think about it.

I'll now work 29 hours per week at the shop; 6.5 hours of lectures/tutorials at the University; and the rest of the time I'll be spending it doing homework, reading for tutorials and dissertations, chorus rehearsals, applying to postgraduate courses and graduate jobs, going to the gym, in the shower, cooking, and sleeping. There's really no time to relax or procrastinate. I really need to get back into my don't-waste-time mode I was once in while in 6th Form; I was insanely productive at one point, having 25 hours of classes per week (no "study/free periods"!), applying to universities, planning travels to Mongolia and Japan, participating in two orchestras, Jazz Band, chamber choir, organising events for boarders and captaining the badminton team. How did I manage that? I really can't remember...in the second half of Year 13, the procrastination cells started to dominate my mind, which was unfortunate as it was the most crucial point of my secondary education. That really can't happen at any point this year.

I shall update later this week about my day trip to London for the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert, which was phenomenal, and it was followed by a wonderful dinner with Andrew :)