Sweet, sweet freedom!

Hello World! I'm back from hell, and it wasn't fun. I finished a fairly painful translation project this afternoon, and I actually had butterflies in my stomach as I was typing up the last few sentences. It wasn't all that bad. About half was laughably easy, but the other half was so freaking painful I wanted to cry. I didn't get to sleep before 2a.m. once in the last week and a half I think. Akinori and I had a big fight towards the end because I wanted more help from him with Sara and he felt that he was doing a lot as it was and I just wasn't appreciating it. We had a nice long talk about that though and both felt a lot better about things at the end I think. Anyway, it's done and now I'm just waiting for the big fat paycheck at the end of December. Can't wait!!

In other news from friend K is coming from Osaka to do some workshops here in Nagano. She and I started belly dancing together and were kind of partners until I changed jobs and became a slave to USJ. I had to quit dancing completely for about a year and in that time she started teaching and taking all kinds of workshops and really improving as a dancer. By the time I got back to dancing, we were in completely different leagues. But now she is a great source of information, inspiration and encouragement and I can't wait to see her and I can't wait to see how the workshops turn out. We're doing two, one on Friday night and one Saturday afternoon and then a show at an Indian restaurant (the closest thing to Middle Eastern Nagano has to offer) later that night, where I'm also going to have a cake for Sara's birthday, since she will turn 1 the day before. I cannot believe my baby is going to be 1 already!

Anyway it's all very exciting and busy, and working on that translation project was just killing me as I was thinking about organzing belly dance stuff every moment and it was sooo hard to stay focused! I was actually really lucky to get a dance studio and the restaurant organized only a month out from the event. I went to a few places and they were either booked up, cost way too much, or really shitty studios. I then decided to contact a place I didn't think I had a chance in hell of booking, and not only were their rates reasonable, the dates I wanted open, and a really nice studio, but they want me to teach belly dance there from the new year. Well, sort of. It would just like what I'm doing now, paying for the studio myself, and organizing all the students on my own. But they would advertise on their homepage for me, which is a huge plus! But the place I rent now is run by the city, and ridiculously cheap - 200 yen an hour! The studio, although reasonable, is not nearly as cheap, which means I would really have to have a good number of students to make it worth it. As it is now, there are times when I only have one student show up to a lesson. That wouldn't even pay for the cost of the studio if I moved to the dance studio. It's definitely something to think about for the future, but I don't think I'm brave enough to take that plunge right now. We'll see how things go after the workshops. Hopefully I'll get a few more students.

Alright, well it's now the next day already, and Sara needs my attention. I've been sitting in front of the computer all day for the last month. Time to go outside and get some Vitamin D for us!