Most of my bills came in around the new year. i referred to them as negative otoshidama (japanese equivalent of red packets) when talking about them with my supervisor. that got a few laughs from the office. so i've talked about water and electricity, both of which were relatively cheap. i know internet and rent will be pretty expensive, so i'm mentally prepared for that. nothing prepared me for the gas bill, though. considering how little cooking i did, i was expecting no more than a thousand yen. imagine my surprise when they billed me 4600+ yen for 4 cubic metres of gas! after some thinking and checking a user manual, i found out the reason. it's because my water heater heats water by burning gas. in my defense, i thought it was electric-only, because the last time i saw a gas-powered water heater was...never! and because of my (wrong) assumption, i didn't think twice about leaving the heater running throughout the night, when i went to work, or even continuously over the weekend. so all the time that it's been on, it's been burning gas, which explains the ridiculously high consumption. ah well, lesson learnt. good news is that if i turn the heater on only when i need hot water (mainly for showers and baths, maybe doing the dishes?), the gas consumption will drop by about 80% or more. looks like it's time to ramp up the self-discipline and mindfulness/attention to detail. almost makes me wonder if this is patent attorney training in disguise. whatever it is, it's giving me an opportunity to work on one of my weak areas with no serious consequence (except losing money), so i should be grateful.

spent most of this past week packing and preparing to move to the new town hall. another downside just came to light, and that is parking is no longer free! from what my colleagues told me, the carpark building adjacent to the town hall is meant for guests and common-use/shared cars owned by the town. employees have to park their personal vehicles some distance away, on privately-owned land. and thus, the landlord reserves the right to charge for use of their land. admittedly, the fee isn't that high; 3000 yen per month, or about 100 yen per day. more like a token sum, actually. but still, going from paying nothing to paying something is a little jarring. my supervisor is trying to get me granted use of a lot within the carpark building (which is free), so i'm hoping that that works out. as an alternative measure, i'll try something creative, like parking elsewhere and walking the remaining distance to the new town hall. worst case is i'm told to suck it up and pay the fee, but i'm hoping that they manage to get me out of it.

what other news is there? based on how frequently i'm writing, there really shouldn't be much to add every day. yet, here we are with paragraphs of text. oh! i stupidly forgot to bring my wallet out of the house this morning. it's because i had to dress formally to meet a teacher to discuss our lesson plans for tomorrow, and i left my wallet in my jeans, which i'd been wearing the previous few days. lucky for me, i brought my coin pouch, which i remembered to transfer from my hoodie to the jacket which i wore today! the combination of those two things meant that i only had 323 yen on me to get something for dinner. a decent-sized tray of chicken was going for 30% off, and the final price was 270 yen. go me! i threw that into my hotpot (which has been going for about a week now, with daily top-ups of ingredients and soup), and made a meal out of that along with spinach scrambled eggs. it was supposed to be a spinach omelette, but i messed up the temperature control. well, you know what they say, try for an omelette, because even if it comes out horrible-looking, you can say that you were going for scrambled eggs. do they even say that? i don't know, but it's true. oh oh oh. talking about price reminded me. i really dislike how in japan, the before-tax price is displayed more prominently, and the after-tax price is usually displayed below, in significantly smaller print. nearly got caught by it a few times, but i've adapted. suppose it's good that i scrutinize labels, even back in singapore!

going to wrap it up here and head for bed soon. have an early day tomorrow, and i'm expected to address the primary school. it's also the last day in the old office building, which i'll miss quite a bit despite only having been there for about a month. it was so much more convenient! but i'll look forward to getting to see cute guy more often in the new place. and i'm scheduled to visit one of the secondary schools in the afternoon. not sure why they want me to go over, because classes don't start until next week. well, i guess i'll find out once i'm there. i'm a bit nervous to drive up there tomorrow, especially with the current weather. it snowed today, which is a rare occurrence in these parts. snow means slippery roads, and along with high winds, is a cause for concern. before i go, i just wanted to talk about one thing that REALLY impressed me today. so i got a failed delivery notice in the mail today. no, that's not the impressive bit. it said that i could reschedule delivery through line! so i did, and part of the process involved taking a picture of the QR code on my missed delivery notification and sending it to the chat bot. the AI somehow processed and recognized the code as belonging to my mail article! amazing. if only singpost had that service, instead of requiring me to either call in or go down personally to the nearest post office. 

-random thought of the day: Another Uniqlo sale!-