I have quite a few foibles (“quirks” if we’re being charitable). One of them is the ability to digress from any given subject matter. It’s really strange, but I’ve found myself talking to people about subjects that weren’t even close to the original topic. But anyway, that is not the foible (I love that word. “foible”. hehe) I wanted to talk about.

The truth is, I’m the kind that gets very upset if my plans (even if they were plans I sleepily made at 1am while trying to fall to sleep) don’t go the way I plan. I originally wanted to talk about the owl cafe today, but then stuff happened and I needed some space to reflect.

You see, I’ve been trying to get my visa renewed since, I don’t know, four months ago? The first time I went to the immigration office, they told me I was too early and sent me home. When I went back there on Tuesday, they sent me away again because I needed some forms stamped by the school. My face was something like this (=.=) because really, this is information I would have appreciated four months ago, when I first came.

When I went to the school on Wednesday, I was told that I needed my passport before the school would stamp the documents I needed. I actually had everything else, the photo (which I showed them), my gaijin and student card, etc. So with my plans disrupted three times, I was quite determined that I would get everything done by lunch today, so that I could continue studying Macroeconomics.

By the way, Macroeconomics in Japanese is my personal Schrodinger’s cat. I simultaneously understand and not understand it and it violates the first principal that A cannot be A and not A at the same time.

Today, when I woke up in the morning, I was so muddleheaded that I left my wallet behind (I don’t know if it’s the meds or something but my brain has been on the fritz lately). So after class, I went to the office to do my paperwork. And then I was told that I can’t get the stamped because I do not have my photo with me. Even though they’ve seen it before.

Now that I’ve written it down, it seems like such a minor thing, but back then, I more or less lost it. I mean, I held it in until I got back home, but then I just started crying and crying, which ruled out the idea of getting my photo and going back, since to go back with tear-stained eyes would be a defeat (in my eyes).

But, after a pity party where I tried to shove the blame on everyone but me, I managed to calm down, and some good events (I won a free roll cake worth 1200+ yen) plus ice-cream got me back to a normal frame of mind.

Yonanas banana and grape soft serve. If you’ve forgotten, I’ve written about Yonanas before.

Looking back, I can’t understand why I would cry over such a small matter. I actually did go back (just to prove that I could finish the documents today), and the staff were as nice as usual. In fact, when they saw me taking a picture (to write a guide for this blog – all of you should learn from my mistakes and save your time and effort for better things), they actually gave me a guidebook as well. And if any of you kouhai’s want one copy, you can always come to Kyudai and we’ll give one to you!

So basically, the one being unreasonable by expecting special treatment, was me.

By the way, I’ll probably mention it in the Visa post, but I really do thing the application process could be a lot smoother. I mean, I’m pretty sure MEXT has all our data in a database somewhere, so why do we need to go and get all these forms?

This is definitely a part of me I need to change. I need to learn how not to be upset when things don’t go my way and to go with the flow.