Update!

The crazy girl is back! Or so we think. Someone's been doing some spooky shit round the building, and she's the prime suspect. Luckily, I'm no longer the object of her madness, as she's now switched over to hunting my buddy. His Japanese is much better than mine as well, so he'll have more luck defending himself against her annoying onslaught.

Otherwise, life goes on. I'm making decent enough money these days, enough to start saving again. Work is hard, kids are draining, but it feels good to be doing something. I'm hoping to start doing some more with the gym soon too, we just did a bunch of remodeling and the place looks great. Capoeira class is picking up again after a real dead spot over the winter, I've gotta work hard to catch up with the people back in Gainesville.

Summer is full on these days. Or at least the rainy season anyway, it's non-stop for days at a time. The heat is great when I'm working out, but sleeping is brutal. I'm looking into picking up a nice electric fan to cool off in the evenings. The days are pretty lazy; mostly been messing with my computer, which is now pretty damn prime.

Since I'm doing part time work at schools, I've got a good summer vacation coming up soon. And it'll be unpaid, unfortunately. But that gives me some incentive to get out of the country for a couple weeks. I'm looking into Thailand; it'll be cheap as. Hopefully find a nice beach hotel in the less touristy areas, just hang out and mow on some good Thai food for pennies.

And America last month was fun, mad busy. I'll get around to re-capping sooner or later.

Back in Business

After a rather extended hiatus, I'm returning to a normal internet life of gaming and posting. The last few months have been a bit of a doozy, what with the move, my injury, trip home, and settling into new jobs. With that all behind me, I'm looking forward to a hot and humid summer spent in my underwear sitting in front of a fan.

It's been about 3 months since I moved into my new place, and I think I'm pretty much home here. Sure, I still have stuff to unpack (that is, junk to throw away) and we're working on sorting out the bills and what to pay, but otherwise I've dug in for the long haul. It's really great to be so close to my friends and able to go to the gym whenever I want. I've also managed to get a good feel for this neighborhood, I know my way around it quite well.

Speaking of the neighborhood, I've had my first full-fledged encounter with a batshit-crazy Japanese. A sad, annoying story, really. There's this 13-year-old girl that moved into the next building, and she was wandering around in the gym one morning. I stop in with my girlfriend and we try to talk to her a little bit, but she's scared stiff of me. So we come back later that night for class and the kid is still there, she'd been hanging around the place all day. A lot friendlier now too, she's talking to everyone, especially me. It was cute at first, but when she wouldn't let go of my arm I began to develop concerns. I noticed she had a twitch and seemed spastic, to say the least. She waited around the gym til about 11pm wanting to hang out (asobu - play) with me after class. I tried to get my girlfriend to tell her to go home, but the little girl wouldn't listen and my girlfriend was really scared of her. In fact, she pretty much ran off, so I had to deal with the crazy girl on my own. I went up to my room to take a shower and she followed me. At my door, I had to push her out of the way and pull the door shut to keep her from getting in, and once I closed the door she opened it again and tried to lock herself in. She then proceeded to hang outside my room ringing, knocking, and calling for me for at least another 15 minutes. Some of my buddies came up to run her off, but she kept coming back. That's when I got scared, you never know what can happen when someone is genuinely crazy.

The next day, she was up bright and early hanging around outside my room and leaving poorly written notes in my mailbox. Luckily, I was pretty busy that day and was out of the building. It turned out she was pretty busy too, being crazy in other, more creative ways. She locked herself in the gym bathroom and began screaming and swearing, argued with and threated the local residents and her mom, exposed herself to various passers-by, and generally demonstrated schizophrenia.

We first met her on Saturday morning, by Sunday evening, we were fully ready to call the cops on her. And Monday afternoon, sure enough, we did. Of course, they were already looking for her as her mom had requested her removal that morning. The little girl was taken to some kind of home for a "trial period."

We're all happy to be rid of her, especially me. But there is a twinge of sadness, because that poor little girl really has no future. Her father is in jail and they're on the run from him. Her mother told my friend the girl was mollested and went into a rather disturbing description of the events. It made me wonder if it was actually mollestation or if the mom didn't simply sell her off. I've been told her mom is just about as whacked as her daughter and it wouldn't be suprising.

Hopefully, we won't be seeing either of them of again and they can continue with their fucked-up lives. It's a really cold assessment on my part, but what can I do? I just hope someone helps them.

Tune in next week to see if she comes back!