Tag: apartments

Improvement!

Today, as of this morning, I feel different. Yay! I feel distinctly different from how I have felt these past two-ish weeks now. I guess the weakness of illness has actually left me, now, and I have a sense of normality within my body’s bounds again. I even am genuinely considering going to the gym tomorrow midday. That’s huge. Truly.

Yes, I still have coughing, especially from too much talking. But it is significantly improved. No full-body convulsion-type coughing fits. Just the occasional few coughs and single coughs sprinkled throughout the day, hacking down that phlegm that is finally clear and white, not yellow.

Anyway, it feels like improvement.

Tomorrow, we go to the apartment to see if they’ll do a walk-through with us (because they no-showed for the walk-through today, our last contract day, since they decided to close the office for the day and ignored our appointment… we had to drop the keys in their dropbox… which never seems actually to work, as they’ve lost everything we’ve ever dropped to them in it…). Fingers crossed on that going well for us, please. Prayers appreciated. We really want to move onward from this apartment.

God, help us, please, so that’s e might dedicate our time, resources, and energy to other things and endeavours that will honor you and share your love with the world around us. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Hmm

Well, I received my black belt. It literally has my name on it. It’s actually quite pretty, really. And, as for the performance we did, it went really well. Also, my mom got to participate in the whole ceremony, too, kind of like last week. Everyone else had a black belt carrying in their belt to the ceremony and presenting it for us. Most of them had a parent as that black belt. But I had a brown belt, my mom, carrying and presenting mine.

When we removed our black-belts-in-waiting belts, the brown with a black stripe through the center, our head instructor had originally just told me we would be handing it to a family member in the audience. Okay, no big deal. I’ll hand it to whomever, so long as he or she is in the front of my family section. Easy peasy. When we actually tied the belts, and she announced to go hand them off, she announced that we were presenting them to ‘the person who had been the most influential in our karate career’. Uuhhh… not what she’d said before… Well, of the options, obviously my mom had played that role. Fortunately, she also was sitting on the front row, making it easy to present the belt to her. I was sure to turn it facing her before presenting it – true Japanese style, of course – and thanking her.

Then we went off with no belts on, breaking rules of the uniform – you never wear the top without the belt and the pants, and without wearing them all fully and properly. Only the pants can be worn without the rest. Then, we changed into our new white uniforms to receive the black belts, again and still breaking the whole uniform rule for another few minutes.

But then the cute and dramatic procession happened, presenting all the belts in rank order, alongside our individual black belts we would receive (carried by our selected black belts and my selected mother who has a brown belt) to music. And we all went back out there one at a time while a photo slideshow played for each of us. After that, we finally were given our belts, and they were tied on for us by our head instructor, and we were officially black belts. So, yay!

It was a good time. So was dinner afterward with my family, and the occasionally chatting with others at dinner.

Separately, I’m still sick. Ugh. Almost no yellow remains in my nasal passages, but the coughing just won’t give up. After tomorrow, I will know if I need to go for more doctor stuff. Ugh.

Also, my apartment lease ends tomorrow. We scheduled a walk-through with the office at 4pm tomorrow. My flat-mate sent me a screenshot of an e-mail she received today – but that I did Not receive, even in spam – that says the office is closed tomorrow. No idea how that is going to go down, but I’m going to pray much about it tonight and tomorrow. This process with this complex has been a huge hassle from the start, and I’m genuinely concerned about what they might try to do to us. Please, say a prayer for our easy move-out tomorrow, if you’re able.

God, help us move forward easily from all of this. Heal my body. Heal my man’s body. Heal all those in need of healing, that we might all serve you better and share your love more effectively. Help us to have a smooth completion with this apartment complex. Please. Please, help me to release this guilt I feel around signing that contract in the second place. Help us, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Nuts

Not only are we a white girl and an Asian girl living in a majority black and part-Hispanic apartment complex – read that ‘major minorities’ – but we are also just generally weird people in the first place… put us in black culture, and we become suddenly even more weird.

Example? Well, today, I tested out how best to go about cleaning the hallway outside our front door… the hallways are outdoors technically, but they are covered, and most have walls on both sides almost their entire lengths. However, they are coated in black and general dirtiness, and it is dreadful. It gets all over the bottoms of shoes, it is so horrible. So, what do I do? Naturally, I scrubbed it with bleach water. I would power wash if it were an option, but there isn’t a hose hookup on our floor near here, and I feel like that would be a bit frowned upon as a whole for the noise and water…

So, yeah… I was scrubbing the ground outside my front door this afternoon. And I’ll be using a bigger floor scrubber, probably tomorrow, to do the whole strip of the hallway next, now that I know it works. And I’m excited about it…

Crazy white girl, for sure… 😛

Post-a-day 2022

We have a…

23-19!!!! We have a 23-19!!!

But, golly, does it feel like we have such a panic sort of situation over here in my life today?

Ugh…

In short, we were approved this afternoon to move into the apartments we’ve been loving and wanting. After months of figuring things out, we finally have it sorted regarding where we get to live, my good friend and I.

Not even half an hour after that informative call to me, I was being informed by my current place that, surprise, I have to make myself scarce immediately (and my visible stuff), and I have to have everything out completely by 10 January. Absolutely not cool.

I have nowhere to store things and I have nowhere to live for six weeks, starting next week.

But I’ll figure it out. Things always work out, somehow. God and the Universe take care of their beautiful Creation, and I am part of that Creation. So, I pray that I be granted the clarity and the brainstorming needed to make this a spectacular situation, filled with love and joy and beautiful, both coming from me and coming to me. Jesus and Universe, I trust in You. Guide me clearly, please, and give me the courage I need for this, please. Amen.

Post-a-day 2021

Boiling point?

I might be at my boiling point this week… physically, though mentally regarding the physically…

You see, I have learned to handle acne rather well for my body… meaning that I have learned how to avoid having very much of it.

Unfortunately, my body is extremely sensitive – well, kind of to everything, but that’s not the point right now – to sweat, when it comes to producing acne.

All I need is to have my skin be the level of sticky sweaty – pouring/dripping sweat is fine, but, once it stops, I need to clean off the skin – in order for acne to show up in the very near future in those exact spots.

So, I washed my face three times throughout the night last night, and have done it several times today, simply because of the heat of the place where I am staying this week – it is warm, like 76 overnight and 82 degrees Fahrenheit during the day (And, before you start saying the temperatures are to save money on electricity or to help save the planet, know that the air is set to “ON”, not to “AUTO”…, so it is always running…, but with warm-ish air abouts.)… I couldn’t identify at first why I was so mentally disturbed by the fact that the apartment was kept so warm, but I eventually realized that that was it: the acne concern.

I was kind of supposed to go take photos with someone this week… now, it is definitely not happening… I already have more acne on my face than when I got here yesterday, plus, I only slept a maximum of a few hours last night, for fear of bugs (I got bitten while aiming to sleep) and for the struggle of the intense warmth of sleeping atop a fabric sofa and wool-like blanket…. so, no photos of me this week, buddy – I need to be not semi-miserable and not annoyed at my physical state to go take such specific photos.

Let’s be real: sitting here, writing this, I keep taking breaks to move my arms away from my body, and to breathe deeply, both in hopes of cooling off even a little bit more… it reminds me of the days of no a/c in the world, when everyone just suffered all summer long, and sat, miserable, on their porches with cold lemonade and a cool rag, unable to get themselves to do anything else, because the mental effort involved in starting any physical effort was just too much for the overheated body and brain to handle…

That’s about how I feel here, breathing in the warm and humid air of the apartment, as though I might just be sitting outside still…, but outside has bugs and wind and rather low humidity, actually… man… not even my deep breathing is relieving, it feels so oxygen-low…

Ugh… okay, you can do this, Banana…

Post-a-day 2020

Home, I guess

Three and a half weeks ago, I moved the last of my belongings into my new housing location… tonight, I am spending my first official night here.

‘Why?’ you ask.

Because first, there was suddenly no hot water (first two weeks); then, it was fixed, but I was in the middle of my final papers and didn’t want to mess with moving myself during that (slash to a place with no internet during that) (one week); and then, I just got nervous about staying here, because it had been so long of not being here and of being in a place where I was emotionally comfortable (at my mom’s, spending lots of time with her) (this past weekend).

What’s funnier, is that I was supposed to move in here another three weeks before I did, but it was pushed back, due to a huge crack in the ceiling from the foundation repairs over the summer.

So really, it’s taken 47 days to move from one place to another, only a few neighborhoods over. 😛

Totally nuts, huh?

And then tonight, while showering, I find that the hot and cold are switched on the shower – I was genuinely concerned at first, since no hot water was arriving, but it worked out (phew!) – and then, when I gently turn the shower-head so that it isn’t pointing really far to the side, water starts shooting everywhere.

I quickly turned the water back to the tub faucet, and worked to remedy the sudden spewing situation on the shower-head, by tightening it back into place… only to find the shower-head suddenly in my hand – apparently it was waiting to break off.

I actually laughed at the absurdity of it, it was kind of like the straw that broke the camel’s bag of laughter – I was in no way stressed, but merely finding the total humor of it all.

It was a clean break, and so I set the shower-head on the floor and turned the water back to the shower function, using just the metal tubing to which the actual sprayer of the shower-head had been attached… it isn’t as efficient, for my shower or the planet, but it works, and it’ll do for now.

Oh, the delights of life… all of this on top of the fact that I’m home super late tonight, but have to be up early tomorrow, and I started feeling the symptoms of my body fighting infection this afternoon (super sore muscles in my upper back and all the way around of my neck).

God, thank you for these blessings I have received – please, help me to be happy, healthy, holy through them all.

Post-a-day 2018

The insignificant significant thought

Thought for the day, which can be answered easily by either asking a friend of mine or by doing some very quick research: I wonder when houses switched from having air vents be on the floor to having them be on the ceiling, and why – sure, cool air falls, but heat still rises…, so it makes sense (in a way) to have heat vents on the floor and cool vents on the ceiling, instead of just one location for both.

Post-a-day 2018

Stepping up

Dear ——, is this still your number?  Hannah ——- here.  I wanted you to know that I am very interested in renting out your apartment.  However, I have three concerns.  1) I’d like to see it to be certain.  2) I would prefer to move in in June instead of May.  Would that be possible?  3) If something were to come up where I receive a job offer abroad, would it work for me to move out sooner than anticipated (even if that means I find a sub-letter, etc.)?

……………………………………………..

A series of text messages I am considering sending tomorrow (as the person prefers messages to calls, and it is too late to do it tonight).

Post-a-day 2018