Hello Pen Pal. Well, I have returned to the ghetto. Lucky me. I returned to New York yesterday. The bus ride was okay. Even though every seat was taken, it was still a pleasant ride. I took the 8:00am bus which left at 8:40am. Only ticket holders with Sunday tickets could get on. Remember, there was a snowstorm.

I arrived in New York at 1:40 (approx.). The first thing I did was to go to the bank to exchange my 5,000 yen bill. Because of the exchange rate (and exchange fee), I only received about $34 dollars. I arrived at my shoebox about an hour later. Another hour later the young lady living on my floor (with her boyfriend) had a big, argument. One of those loud, "oh god, will I need to call the police" kind of fights. While I sat in my room hoping the argument would end, my other neighbor (there are 3 rooms per floor) had another way of dealing with the loud screaming (mostly from the young lady)...He turned his stereo up full-blast. Although my walls were vibrating, and my teeth were shaking, it did the trick. The argument stopped. But, started when the music stopped. So, my neighbor left it on for another couple of hours.

This morning, I was supposed the return to subbing, but I just was not in the mood. If I was a full-time teacher, then I would have went to work, but since I'm not, I did not. Then, around 10am this morning, my upstairs neighbor turned his (or her) stereo full-blast. And the music was on until I left around 2pm. Another comment about my neighbor. I bought cheap dollar store strainers for the drains in the kitchen sink and the bathtub. But looking at the crap the strainers catch, my neighbor has decided to take out the strainers. Now, both the kitchen sink and the bathtub are running slow. People have a bad habit of ignoring minor problems until the minor problems become big problems. Am I really being unrealistic to think cleaning out a strainer is better than trying to unclog a drain. To make matters worst, my neighbor seems to look at the drains as garbage disposals; if it is small enough to go down the drain, then let it go down the drain (including a matchstick).

More of the ghetto life...

On the train ride here, a couple of girls got on the train. They were (as the saying goes) "straight up ghetto". They were loud and very vulgar. Every other word out of those young lady's mouths were curse words, or loud vulgar comments. Then, one decides out loud that she is going to get a boyfriend (today is Valentine's Day), so she takes a few steps to the middle of the train car and just starts staring at the men around her (including me). Now being the troll that I am, of course I get the comments, and the laugher. The "oh my god this..." and the "I can't believe that...".

My life sometimes sucks!