moving right along

I love how it doesn't feel like we were ever apart. Like that Muppet song I love says: "Together again. It's not starting over; it's just moving on."

Speaking of moving, I came back to a haphazard bachelor pad that has to be packed up and cleaned so that we can move into our new apartment in Chino. I don't know much about Chino, except that I've seen it on the train schedule. It's near Suwa, a place with a really huge lake that Zack once ran a half-marathon around. I want to run that half-marathon this year. We went to Suwa last year when Michael and Andy came to visit. It has a ton of geothermal activity, which means that it has awesome onsen. I hope that Chino is cool.

I've been scrubbing three months' worth of microorganisms off of various surfaces throughout the apartment and loading up boxes since yesterday. We're making good progress. I've also gotten on a very good sleep schedule, going to bed around 10 and getting up around 7. I hope I can keep it up once I start teaching.

My job starts next Wednesday. I can't believe that I'll be doing a real job, not just an interim job or a job to pay the bills. I really think it will be a great chance for me to learn and grow as a person, as well as rack up job experience. I never envisioned myself as a teacher, but I can see myself as a professor somewhere down the line.

But there's always my one true calling: to be a writer. I am much more calm since overcoming my travel hurdles and I can't wait to be in a new place with new potential, like a clean sheet of paper. I am going to submit my essay before I start working. I will really, sincerely do this. My creative nonfiction professor is going to give me some feedback so that I feel more confident. Having someone look over my work is one of the only ways that I can truly finish anything. I need discipline and deadlines. I just wish I had a personal ass-kicker to make me accomplish more of my goals. Zack and I have decided that we will each have a real desk in our new place, a little creative nook to call our own. He's itching to paint and I crave the deep kind of writing that comes from having a home place. We're also going to buy some new furniture and really settle in. We'll probably be there for the next two years, so might as well make it comfortable.

I'm just so relieved to be back, even if I already miss being around the people that I love. It's the cost of being on the move.