I got a bit overwhelmed looking at new ovens. They are all so complicated! I just want something that will make food hot. Do I need a "dehydrate fruit" setting?

However, I am glad that they mostly seem to be larger than my current oven. I just spent the entire weekend baking two batches of cookies. I need something that can handle more than five or six cookies at a time, especially around the holidays. Especially since a few years ago I decided it would be nice to make it a school tradition that I baked cookies for all the kids at Christmas. Dumb, dumb move on my part. Now they look forward to it and start talking about "Alisa-sensei's cookies, yay!" at the start of the month and I look into their little faces and go "Oh, fuck me, I'm going to spend the entire weekend chained to the kitchen, aren't I?" (Although after this particular weekend, they are all getting a cookie AND a hug. I read a bit about how one of the first grade teachers at Sandy Hook had her kids all huddled for safety and told them she loved them because she figured that if they were going to die, she wanted THAT to be the last thing they heard rather than gunfire and it makes me want to both hug people and punch things. Hard.) Anyway. I got all those cookies done and then today I finished up the Christmas gift baking (people are not getting very much in the way of buckeyes because I gave half of those to Tomoko. Hey, you want the good candy? Have a baby.) and now I suddenly have another batch of cookie dough in the fridge and vague plans for toffee, because what if there is a candy emergency?

So, it turns out that when the access information page on the Seien website says "take bus 9 or 10", what they actually mean is "take a bus from STOP 9 or 10", because bus 9 goes in entirely the opposite direction. Luckily I was being paranoid and had taken a ridiculously early bus, so by the time I figured it out, hopped off the bus, and hailed a cab, I still managed to make it to the interview with five minutes to spare.

And I got the job! Although it is complicated by the fact that the girl I am being hired to replace has decided to stay on for one more year. She'd formally resigned so I gather that while they were pleased enough with her previous performance to give her her job back, they were annoyed enough at being jerked around to make her share her hours with me. And speaking of those hours, they are still tbd. I guess we will kind of have to hammer that out sometime before April. So. Nothing else is going to get formalized or finalized or anything else before January so I can just relax now and enjoy sleeping in on Fridays. I am soooo looking forward to not having to take a shower tomorrow before my apartment has had a chance to warm up. I had the hot water set at 50C this morning and I still nearly caught pneumonia.

I love my new coat so much. It's like wearing a blanket, but you get less judgmental looks in public. Plus, pockets!

Sunday's visit with Tomoko was good. I always forget how tiny newborns really are. My brain goes "they are pretty small!" and then I see one and it blows my mind every time. So teeny tiny! She is a cutie, too. Big sister Zuzu is in no danger of being seen as less cute, though, especially not when she sings along to YouTube videos of Beatle songs. (Her current favourite is Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. She dances and everything.)

I don't have a lot of pictures as I was too busy picking up the baby every chance I got. 

Have you ever wondered what it would take to get me to even consider a job that involved mornings and a commute? I always vaguely assumed it would either be utter desperation or a direct order from Masami (ie, my Wednesday kindy), but it turns out that if you wave enough money in my face I will totally consider getting up at 7 am.

Last month Kylie contacted me to ask if I knew anyone who was looking for some part-time work. The junior/high school she works at is looking for a new teacher or two come April, and after she told me the basics (4500 yen an hour, finished either at noon or at two depending on the day, classes of 15, easy enough to take time off, no prep, work from a textbook, able to leave right after class finishes, 4500 yen an hour) I did some quick math and a quick transit sketch in my head and figured out that I would be able to fit it in on Thursdays and Fridays and now I have an interview tomorrow. Eep.

Well, sort of eep. I'm a bit nervous, of course...this is my first formal interview in well over a decade (my interview for MI involved meeting Masami at Starbucks and by the end of the day she'd offered me the job then and there) and I have to think serious thoughts about my wardrobe (I asked Kylie for advice, hoping she wouldn't say I would need a suit, and we had a bit of a cross-cultural communication mishap when she advised a skirt, skivy, and cardie, because apparently in New Zealand a skivy just means a conservative-type top and not, as I thought, underwear.) Also there is the getting there issue...the school is located near to downtown, which means that eventually I will be able to cycle there, but tomorrow I will be taking the bus and my current plan is to get there really ridiculously early. Better early than late, but I have this fear I will be left to wander up and down the road in front of the school for 30 minutes before it is appropriate to actually go in. 

On the other hand...well, if it doesn't go well, the worst that happens is that I don't have to contend with early morning traffic and can keep sleeping in on Fridays. Also, as far as I know, I'm the only candidate so far...they didn't open the job up to the public yet and after I said I was interested, Kylie stopped asking people. 

Here's hoping I manage to actually get more than six hours of sleep tonight!

I really shouldn't go into Uniqlo on cold and windy winter days, as I am overwhelmed with the temptation to buy all the fleece. Not to wear, just to line my entire apartment with.

I stopped by on Wednesday and tried on a jacket/sweater thingy that was SO SOFT AND FLUFFY. It was like being hugged by a baby seal. I summoned up all my willpower and left it in the store, but on Friday I got a notice from Uniqlo that the jacket would be on sale this weekend.

Yeah. I have a new fluffy jacket.

Germs are the worst. This post was supposed to be full of new baby pictures, but I woke up on Saturday with a throat thingy going on and it wasn't gone on Sunday. It didn't even qualify as a scratchy throat, let alone sore, but I talked with Tomoko and we reluctantly decided that exposing Aaniya to germs before she was even a month old was kind of cruel. Let's let her have this first Christmas before we introduce her to the wonderful world of runny noses that is going to make up her existence for the next few years.

I'll go next Sunday instead...even if there are any germs still hanging around, they probably won't survive all the alcohol I intend to consume on Saturday night at our work Christmas party.

So instead of baby snuggles I went a bit mad in the kitchen. I made gnocchi and cheddar onion rolls (both from the SK cookbook), fake perogies (not from the SK cookbook although it turns out she has an almost identical recipe on her site, right down to using wonton wrappers as a lazy substitute for dough), applesauce, and cookie dough. (It is in the process of being turned into cookies tonight but I suspect it will have to be finished up tomorrow.) It was a cold and rainy day and at no point did my apartment get over 11C, so before I did all that I had to clean up the living room and set up the kotatsu so I could stick the bread dough under it and the butter, too, to soften it enough so I could actually make the cookies.

It was fairly tiring but luckily I had all those rolls to sustain me.

Pauline and I have officially called off our trip this winter holiday. We had started planning ages ago but then had to put it off for various reasons and by the time we got going again it was kind of too late. We were looking at various alternatives and when I realized that even just going to Chiang Mai again would cost about 100 000 yen and take 30 hours with layovers I threw in the towel. (My favourite was the 1 000 000 + yen flight to Vientiane that detoured through Frankfurt.) Luckily Laura emailed me a few days after that to ask if I was coming to Seoul for Christmas so I have a solid plan B. It may not involve tropical jungles and warm summer temperatures, but there is a comfy couch, central heating, and possibly two dogs so enormous I can ride them around like ponies.