March 12, 2006

Hello Pen Pal. Well, it has been about 2 weeks since my last posting. Sorry for the delay. You did not miss much. I could have written about inconsiderate neighbors, but then, I think that you have a pretty good idea what I am going through. So, anything else to write about?

Last Tuesday, I completed my final requirement for getting my New York State teaching license (assuming that I passed the CST teaching examination). I waited until payday (Friday) to get the $100 postal money order for the application fee for the license (unfortunately, I didn’t leave school before the post office closed). On Monday (I hope), I will send everything up to the state capital (Albany). If all goes well, I should have my teaching license in a couple of months. I’ll let you know if I hit any bumps in the road along the way.

Yesterday, my plan was to get the remainder of my things from my foster father’s apartment, next Monday, he will be getting his apartment painted. After getting the remainder of my things, I decided to go to the bookstore. Since the movie “Broke Back Mountain” won a couple of Academy Awards, I thought I would read the book (before I saw the movie). It turns out the movie was based on a short story. I ended up buying the paperback book for about $10. In hindsight, I wasted my money. I finished reading the book in about 15 or 20 minutes (that included reading some parts more than once). After going to the bookstore, I went to Burger King. Actually, I could have finished the whole book in Burger King, but since the book was so short, I’d decided to wait until I returned to my shoebox. Speaking of shoebox.

Now that I have six more boxes, and about 3 bags of more things in the room, it is now even more of a shoebox. For the last couple of weeks, I have been feeling more like a caged hamster, now that feeling is getting more intense. Add the (wall shakingly) loud music blaring, and the child-like behavior of my neighbors, and the feeling of being a hamster is rapidly changing to the feeling of being a caged lab mouse. For the last couple of weeks, I have not been in the mood to do any blog entries (until today).

After returning from Washington DC, I had just gotten over a cold, and I think I caught another cold from the loud young lady who came in the kitchen hacking and coughing while I was cooking my dinner. The previous night, her and her boyfriend (oh, excuse me…her husband) were in the kitchen for about 2 hours. That was the night I had spent about $80 dollars worth of food, so that I could stop eating out. By the time they were finished, it was late, so I only opened up a can of soup. The next evening, I did managed to get into the kitchen, but as I am cooking the young lady comes in to make a pitcher of ice tea for her…husband. 24 hours later, I was (also) hacking and coughing up a storm.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Yesterday, I also went to a Japanese Food store here in Manhattan. I was just planning to buy a few items. And, I did. See the attached photo. I ended up spending $39.04 on 16 items. Actually, most of the items, I could have bought in the 100 yen store if I was still in Japan.