As you can see, this week I've kept mostly Goa in my wardrobe, though my Heaven & Earth fukubukuro arrived and was pretty awesome so I've slipped back to my usual black wardrobe a couple of times.. it's kind of nice being settled into one style thats comfortable and not one that makes me feel bad, or self conscious about how I look in it (*cough* Glad News *cough*).. Hopefully my lovely friend Nicola won't become too worried I'm copying her, especially seeing as my hairdresser took my instructions of colouring it anything he wanted and coloured it.. pretty much the same as hers >.< fhasdlkjfh stylist what are you doinggg... stylist stahhhp...
The H&E fukubukuro was awesome, as I said! In Japan, at New Year, lots of stores have "lucky bags" where you pay maybe 10,000JPY and get items worth maybe 3-4 times the price of the bag, but usually its either a set of items, or you don't know whats inside, which makes it risky! The H&E bag cost 10,000 and inside were two outers, a light blazer, a shirt, two basic tshirts, and a black wool sweater.. I love it all! It's store quality, which sometimes isn't the case with these lucky bags..
Anyway so This week I've been making a real effort to make sure my New Years resolutions aren't just words this year, and they actually happen! My main points were:
- Eat healthily and exercise more
- Find a teacher/school and improve my Japanese
- Save money!
So, have I actually followed through?
Eat healthily and exercise more: this last week I've been lucky enough to have found a workout buddy in the lovely Mitsu, and we mail workout and food updates daily on Line (a smartphone chat app).. it's not a terribly serious thing but it helps to have someone who will say "OK, I just worked out today" so I can feel motivated to do the same! I have been following the jaNEWary workout plan from Cassey Ho of Blogilates and its killer! At the same time, having done one week, when I worked out today, I didn't feel like it was so killer, so I hope I can improve! I had an eating schedule for this week too but I kept finding new recipes to try so it went out the window.. Loosely now, I eat fruit/yogurt/smoothies for breakfast, a small snack of nuts mid-morning, lunch I get at school, then another snack of fruit in the afternoon, and dinner of chicken or salmon and lots of vegetables! I also bought a mixer so I can make juices and smoothies, and I'm trying to drink 8+ glasses of water a day.. it's hard sometimes cause water bloats me so bad at the moment, but only 1 week of the fruit, veg and water and already my skin feels awesome and I have more energy!
Finding a teacher. I am ashamed that I've been here for 2 years almost and I still can't speak or read very well. Obviously it gets better from time to time, but I don't have any Japanese friends or colleagues that can't speak a minimum of English, and I have to speak English at work, and with a boyfriend who wants to improve his language skills too.. it can be hard! I'm useless at motivation for self study so I contacted Akane, a teacher I had a trial class with when I first came to Japan, and we're going to set up some classes, so that's that one underway!
Finally, money! This one is the bane of my life because I'm useless at it. I'm slowly but surely getting better though! I've got into habits like my rent, phone bill and train pass, so I'm hoping to get into a habit with saving too. I took 25% of my paycheque from my account on payday and secreted it in my apartment to either send back to the UK if I need to use that account, or keep hidden away here.. it's a nice feeling to know that I have that money waiting if theres a problem! It might end up getting used up sooner than I want though as I want to go home sometime in the near future but its a start!
Lastly, it snowed like a beast all day today so here are some snow photos!
