I went to car wash in this morning. I was still feeling dizzy and wasn’t sure it was a good idea to drive a car. But, well, I drove my car anyway because my car was soooooo dirty and making me crazy. While I was waiting for my car to be washed, I thought how much fun to wash cars as a job. When I was in the college, my apartment had a little car wash area, and I quite often washed my car because I love washing my car. It’s almost same as I have so much joy from cleaning bathroom or kitchen. I don’t think I am clean freak because my room does get messy and dusty. I just like the act of cleaning. I do enjoy checking out each cleaning product at the store and watching infomercial on TV. I was very excited when I saw Oxy Clean thing on TV at the first time. I was like “I MUST HAVE IT!!” I thought it was amazing product because you can clean room and also you can clean your clothes too!! It’s just fantabulous!! Of course, I did get it and well, I was kinda disappointed because it wasn’t working as well as I thought. My favorite cleaning tool is, of course, Swiffer and Clorox wipes. I cannot live without these!!

I wasn’t feeling particularly well yesterday, but I forced myself to go to Bloomingdale’s in downtown. Why? Because I wanted to get a tie and shirt for the wedding I am going in this weekend. I thought I have enough dress shirts, but when I checked my closet, I realized that I do not have wedding kinda shirts. Also, I hadn’t shopped for a long long long long loooong time, so I thought it was a good idea to shop a little bit to make feel better. One thing I like about Bloomingdale’s (downtown one) is that store staffs are actually helpful. I like stuff which Barneys New York carries, but I hate the store so much. People there are sooooo snobby!!

I realized that caramel popcorn is very addictive.

Have you ever thought about what you cannot have on pizza? I usually like mushroom, green peppers, and black olives as topping. I also like broccolis and artichoke too. I still remember that my friend Ryan didn’t like broccolis on the pizza because he thought it was gross. Marc doesn’t like anchovy on his pizza. There are certainly like and dislike as topping. I guess most of people like pepperoni or some meaty thingy on their pizza. I assume some people like having seafood or something like that. So, what I cannot put on the pizza? I asked Marc if he could make kimuchi pizza, and he rejected my idea. I think it would be delicious to have kimuchi on the pizza. I think tofu might work as well. I kinda remember that when I went back to Japan, I saw “mochi kimuchi pizza” on the menu. If you think about pizza really, it’s just flat bread with cheese and maybe tomato sauce. Well, since pizza doesn’t have to have tomato sauce nor cheese, I think you can put pretty much anything on the pizza. So, my point here is that since you can put whatever you want, it is impossible to dislike pizza….well, I think.

I was in the hospital in the past several days. I had some sort of panic attack on Sunday which I never though I would have. I guess it was kinda interesting. Marc and I went to the wedding in Bloomington, Indiana over the weekend. Oh, yay, Priayada and Josh finally got married! Anyway, after we got back from Indiana, I was so exhausted and just passed out.

When I woke up (I think it was around 9pm), I heard massive fire cracker explosions. Some kids were out on the street playing with fire crackers, and they just didn’t stop. Of course, I was very annoyed by that loud sound and before I knew it, I was having chest pain. I was thinking, “Oh, hmm, I am having chest pain. I think this is pretty painful, maybe I should change sleeping position or something.”

So, I tried to flip myself up and down, right to left, but my chest pain didn’t go away. Then, I though, “Huh, I am kinda having shorten breath, and I thin pain is getting worse. Am I having heart attack, no, I don’t think so because I do excise regularly eat pretty healthy stuff. Oh, and I am too young to have heart attack.”

I guess I should be more panicky since I was having panic attack, but I wasn’t really that upset. I was more upset when I thought about going to ER again, and having huge medical bills! But, I felt pretty miserable, so I asked Marc to take me to ER. By the time the doctor came to see me, I was fine. But, I was told to stay in the hospital for observation and take MRI for my dizziness and hearing loss to make sure my brain is alright. It was kinda sucky to stay in the hospital, but oh well, I guess it was okay. MRI came back negative, so I guess that’s good.

My past three weeks has been very very eventful in the kinda not so exciting way. Staring from Bells, hearing difficulty, vertigo, and finishing up with panic attack. Huh. Oh wait, actually, when I was discharged from the hospital, my doc told me that my thyroid level is too high or low or whatever and that might be contributing to my ability of “easily get pissed off/agitated” and as a result, panic attack. So, I gotta see him tomorrow to discuss about result of the blood test which I did today. I am sooooo sick of being sick! I eat healthy diets, go to the gym 4-5 times a week, and jog almost every day. You know, I am like mr. healthy life style. Hmmm… I am gonna so eat ice cream tonight…., and it’s not low fat one!!!

Blinds are so hard to clean. It gets so tedious because you have to clean every single ones to have sparkly clean lovely blinds. Last time I cleaned my blinds, it took me more than half hour to finish cleaning. I have been looking for some kinda tools that can clean blinds without spending tons of times. I was checking HomeDepot, but of course, they didn’t have one. Well, the store staffs I asked seemed that they didn’t know what they were doing….ugh. I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond, but they didn’t have one. They did have micro fiber handy mop thingy which is supposed to clean all dirt, dust, and other dirty thingy without using any cleansers. I almost bought one, but I didn’t because I didn’t feel like buying that particular one remembered that I had 20% off coupon in my apt. Ah, smart shopper! Well, I did get mildew remover at HomeDepot, so I am kinda looking forward to use it, so I can have sparkly clean lovely bath room!

I was watching CNN in this evening, and well, all programs were about hurricane because CNN is your hurricane headquarter!! Even Larry King Live was about hurricane. Stupid reports were in the affected areas and talking about evacuation orders and how empty in the areas were. It seemed that they were very much in kinda danger cos all the rain and wind were blowing them off. That would be kinda funny if those reports died because of reporting the hurricane and if they were the only causality of the hurricane. Ummm, I feel it’s kinda wasting money to spending alots of money just reporting the hurricane. Are there other things should be in the news? Oh well.

I am gonna so start excising from tomorrow. I am still dizzy and walk like drunk dude, and there is no way I can go jogging or anything like that, but I gotta do something! I thought about doing Yoga, but since I am so off balance right now, it’s just stupid idea to do Yoga. I wanted to work out so bad, so I played Super Mario Sunshine. My Mario did a lot of jumping, running, spinning, swimming, lifting, and sliding for me. Oh, he did fall a lot though. But, he is still chunky! Poor guy.

Andrew likes Hey Sushi. Hey Sushi is sushi restaurant by my apt. I don’t think the restaurant has the best sushi, but I guess it’s alright. Andrew and I went to Hey Sushi for lunch in this afternoon. He stopped by my apt before he moves away to Arizona for good. He is starting PhD program in clinical psychology from this fall. Well, so I guess we are both going to start PhD program at the same time and hopefully, we will earn PhD degree for five years. When we both got accepted from PhD programs, we were talking about it would be so funny if we publish research paper together. Well, since we are in different fields, I am not sure how realistic it is, but who knows. At the restaurant, he, of course, ordered some cheese topped sushi thingy which I think kinda gross. We were talking about how much we are going to miss Chicago and other stuff. I was telling him that I hate going graduate student orientation because I am not really good at meeting new people. I told him that I will introduce myself to other new grad students, “hi, I am ken and my face is half paralyzed. But, don’t feel bad because it will go away. Tee-hee!” He was saying I should put that in my name tag which I will be very likely to have at the orientation! He was telling me that his one of cats has anxiety disorder. I was like, “how the hell you know she has an anxiety disorder???” He explained to me that his cat’s hair started falling off, and there is nothing wrong with her skin. So, she doesn’t have any skin infection, but she is losing her hair. And when he asked vet if anything he can help her, his vet told him that he could give her some meds for anxiety… Of course, he declined the treatment! I didn’t know cats can have anxiety disorder. I wonder what kinda stuff his cat worries about. Maybe where she is going to take a nap or if she can jump to the top of TV.

Since I am going to go to Minneapolis in this weekend, I started contacting property mangers there. Ugh, it’s so hard to find place to live when you are not living in the city you are moving into. I must find a place when I visit there because I need to move there in the end of this month! Holy guacamole!!

I don’t really like milk. I even don’t like skim milk neither. But, I do like latte. Well, I usually prefer regular coffee (hot coffee, my philosophy is this, ice coffee is not coffee). I get latte when I feel like I need some caffeine, but don’t want to get regular coffee because it might be too much for my stomach. Intelligentsia does make good soy lattte, but it doesn’t come cheap. Usually, soy milk is extra 50 cents, and I always get extra large. Therefore, I end up paying $4 for just latte. Yesterday, before the therapy, I had extra time, so I went to the nearby coffee shop in Evanston. I had never been that particular store before and I was hoping to get some good coffee. I ordered soy latte, and well, it was sucky. They used vanilla soy milk for soy latte. Oi!!! I really hate soy latte with vanilla soy milk. Starbucks does that too. I just wanna plain regular soy milk. I don’t like flavor coffee, so why the hell I like vanilla flavored latte! Booboo. I never go back to that coffee shop again!

I am finally going to visit Minneapolis for apartment hunt in this weekend. Phew, I thought I am never gonna make it there! I hope I can find a decent place to live. It doesn’t have to be fantastic or anything, I just need a place which is good enough. Since I have a pretty low standard for the apartment, it shouldn’t be that hard for me to find a place.

I was in Minneapolis over the weekend. Fortunately, my dizziness has been getting much much better and I could drive there without asking Marc’s help. Well, we did kinda make wrong turns though… Anyway, I was almost desperate to find a place there because I am moving in two weeks!! I had couple appointments for showing in Saturday. First appointment was kinda disappointment. The guy showed us three one bed rooms in two different apartments, but all of them were carpeted and smell like smoke. And, well, current residents were very international. Hmmm. Well, all rooms were $625/mo so, they are much cheaper than what I pay for now. But, still I had a little issue choosing those rooms. We had couple hours between next appointment, so we had lunch at Tibetan restaurant in uptown. Momo was so delicious!!

My next apartment was much much closer to main Uptown area, and the room was hardwood floor!!! Also, I really liked the fact the stove was gas. Well, the rent is $715 which is a little bit higher than what I am paying right now. But, considering I am living in tiny studio room, I guess it’s alright. So, I singed the lease and paid application fee and partial deposit. I hope I have a good credit and no criminal history! I am just so relieved that I finally found a place to live!!

I bought IPass, and I am so loving it!

I was very upset. I was very very very upset when my credit card was declined. Well, it’s not really my credit card, it’s my dad’s credit card. Well, I tend to spend a little bit more than my dad would like me to spend. I have been having difficulty using this card. When I was in the middle of massive ER visitation period, I couldn’t use the card. My dad’s personal info was part of the thousands of personal info breached. So, Visa had to suspend my card and sent me new card. When I got new card, I tried to use it, but I couldn’t. So, I had to call Visa why I couldn’t use my card. The guy told me that there was a suspicious activity associating with my previous card. So, they temporary disabled my card until I confirmed if it was my spending or not. After I confirmed that it wasn’t my spending, I could start using new card. Then, last week, when I tried to use my card, I couldn’t use it again. So, I called Visa people again, and the guy over the phone told me that my dad had to call Visa because my dad is the one paying bill. So, I called my dad asked him to call Visa. 10 minutes later, he called me back and told me that I couldn’t use the card because of insufficient balance. I was like “Huh?” Well, in Japan, how credit card companies charge bills works differently from here.

When you use a credit card, you have to decide you are going to make one time payment (full-payment), two times payment, or revolving payment at the time of purchase. So, usually, a casher asks you “do you wanna make one time payment?” If you wanna make two times payment, you have to scream, “nooooo, I wanna two times payment!!!” I think that’s one of the reasons that less people use credit card in Japan and people have less credit card debt than people here because you have to pay back before your debt is getting out of hands!! Also, spending limit is really really limited! You have to pay extra membership fee to become gold/platinum member and increase spending limit. Also, gold/platinum membership is selective (e.g. 30 years old or over, have stable income and have worked same company for more than 5 years).

My dad has to make full payment whatever I buy here in the end of the month because, well, the billing system is different between Japan and U.S. So, why I couldn’t use my card again? It’s simple. My dad didn’t put enough money into his bank account when Visa tried to directly transfer the balance from his account. Without warning, they just stopped my card!! My dad deposited money next day, but I couldn’t still use my card. Sooooo, I asked my dad, and he told me that it would take a week to confirm the transaction. A week to just confirm!? That’s just bullshit. I was dying without card! I even didn’t have money to buy a cup of coffee!!! I was so pissed, but at the same time, I realized that I am kinda a brat. Oh well.

My weekend was really really long. Saturday, Marc and I went to Lollapalooza. Yeah! Lollapalooza!! I was so looking forward to go to this since my summer has been shadowed by illness. Saturday lineup included Weezer, VHS or Beta, Pixies, Cake, M83, etc etc... Liz Phair played too, but I couldn’t careless about her cos I did not like her last album. Aaand, she sounded awful in the live!! Anyway, I think Weezer was main show on Sat because they played in the last. Although I did see Weezer before, I was very excited to see them. However, they were horrible!!!! I loved their last show I went, but, this time, nooooooooo! It was such a disappointment, and we left after 30 minutes! I have no idea what’s happened to the band! But, overall, I really enjoyed the first day!

Sunday was the second day of Lollapalooza. Yaaaay. Well, we didn’t go. Why? Because it was fucking hot!!!!!! 104 degree of hotness wasn’t doing anything to me!! We planed to see Killer and Death Cab For Cutie in the evening, but it didn’t happen. There was fucking no way I would stand in the middle of the open space under this extreme weather. Instead of going to Lollapalooza, we had a dinner with Priyada and Josh. I hadn’t seen them since their wedding, so it was nice to hang out with them. Of course, I did remind them that I am moving this Saturday or Sunday, and they are welcome to help me out! Tee-hee!!

Hmmmm, well, Marc’s car got towed today. Actually, his car was towed right in front of our eyes!! Marc tried to reason them, but, of course, they towed his car anyway. It was very interesting to go to the car pound. For some reasons, every person was having some kinda trouble getting back their cars. There was a guy who kept the city sticker in the dashboard, and he was almost charged for not properly displaying the sticker thingy. Other guy didn’t have registration card with him because the car was his mom’s or something like that. Fortunately, Marc got his car back without hassle which was really good. Although he didn’t have the car title nor registration card, the clerk lady just let him pay and go. I guess bring parking ticket was good enough to prove his ownership of his car!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!! I am so packing! I finally found out that I can move in this Sunday instead of Monday, I was able to set things up. Marc is going to take Monday off, so he is able to come with me and help me moving stuff. Yay! I am leaving Chicago Saturday and stay at Eau Claire. Then, move to Minneapolis on Sunday! Tee-hee!! Marc is going to fly back to Chicago on Monday evening because I am too lazy to drive him home! I probably come back Chicago before the orientation. Anyway, packing is painful, but somewhat I am having fun. I dropped off significant numbers of shoes at used clothes store by my apt today. I didn’t wear them over three years, so I think I won’t wear them even if I bring them to Minneapolis!

I was planning to buy new TV, but I think I won’t because I spent too much money on fixing my car. My car had a problem with break, so I brought to Midas, and it cost me $320 to fix. Ouch.

I am gonna miss Chicago, but I am very looking forward to start program!!