Creeps

Recently I've met the most creepy person I've ever met in my life. My list of creeps is short. When I lived in Europe, I was encountering creepy men everywhere. In college I just met jerks, but they were not creepy; they were just jerks. Now, I think that in "the real world" I have met a real creep. It's enlightening. Combining the sleaziness of being my superior and the annoyance of my own dependence upon his company, he not only has taken the cake, but he has baked the cake, hollowed it out, and is waiting inside of it to pop out at the most inappropriate time possible.

Mainly as a reaction to not having men hit on me in high school, there were creeps around every corner in Europe. I wore my high school ring on my left ring finger and turned it around so it looked like a wedding band every time I road the trains. In Amsterdam walking around the city one night another tourist came up and propositioned me for sex. This was definitely creepy, but I just got pissed off and swore at him. Seriously, 50 euros? I'm way better than that.

During college, all the guys that were creepy got warned and told to stop. They stopped. This was made easier by the fact that they were all below me.

Now I find myself face-to-face with someone I can't fake being married with or swear at or just dismiss because he's my boss. He hired me under false pretenses, he makes inappropriate suggestions, and is overly familiar in his written and verbal communication with me. In the states, I'd claim sexual harassment and get his behavior changed faster than a NASCAR oil change. Unfortunately, I can't do that because I need his company (meaning an institution, not a social relationship) for my visa.

What if you had to deal with a creep for a limited time? I've been brainstorming and have come up with the following stratagem: Suck it up a few more weeks, get my contract translated, figure out how much notice I need to give him before I quit, get my visa, quit.

So after these six years of meeting creeps, will my newest approach take care of the creeps? Pretending to be someone else works if they don't know who you are. Swearing works for creeps who I don't need to have a relationship with. Explaining to a guy why he's creeping you out only works when you both know you're better than them. Before the 1964 Civil Rights Act what did women do in situations like this?

Daily Commutes

I'm currently in the process of looking at apartments I cannot afford. Because I am looking at the lower end of the housing bracket, finding conveniently located apartments is difficult since I work at two separate occupations separated by 1.5 hours of trains. One (Job A) of these jobs is consistently 5 days a week, but the other (Job B) is only one day a week with the possibility of more sporadically throughout the year.

I can find a small apartment for under 50000 yen near a train station that is a block away from Job A and an hour and a half away from Job B. There is another apartment twice the size of that one and semi-furnished for a little over 50000 yen a five minute bus ride from Job A and an hour fifteen minutes from Job B.

The question is this: Is a commute of over an hour a few times a week worth it if you're paying low rent on your apartment?

Lost beach

When I was in Hawaii, the people I stayed with took me to the Lost set. Here are some of the photos I took with my camera phone.

This is a photo of the beach next to the set. There were dozens of giant sea turtles feeding just feet from where the water was hitting the shore. It was really beautiful there and, as you can see, the weather wasn't too bad either.

These are my friends in front of the set. They weren't shooting that day, so the entire set was surrounded by that orange fence and the actual huts themselves covered in plastic wrap. Because all beaches are public in Hawaii, they can't really keep people away from the set and even during filming, people are allowed to come down to the beach.

This is Sawyer's cabin, shrink wrapped. Since his cabin was right next to the orange fencing, it was pretty easy to take a photo of it. To see a shot of the back of this cabin from the show, go here.

Mr. Eko's church from season two.

Finally, here is a really short, shoddy videos I took of the set with my phone (if it doesn't work, it's probably hanging out with the roan):

Very Badly Burned

Do you know what sheet beating is? It is when you take someone out back, cover them with a bed sheet, and start wailing on them. That is what a sunburn feels like.