About half the people I told my new job experience to has told me to quit or if they were in my place that they would have quit already. The other half has told me to find another job and then quit. The pity party table for one has expanded into a consensus agreeing that not only does my job suck, but its bad enough to seriously consider quitting despite the state of the current job market.

I have spoken to my boss about certain issues and even though I didn't say so, he can tell that I'm on the verge of quitting. And even though he didn't say so, I have a feeling that there was someone who they hired right before me who did bail. I don't know if he really wants me to stay or if he just doesn't want to go through the hiring process all over again. It's probably a combination of both.

Meanwhile, the job hunting has started up again.

Yesterday, at the very end of the day, boss person calls me up (yes, he checks up on me via phone, but I'm very much paranoid that he's actually got some sort of surveilance system because otherwise he is incredibly trusting) and asks me, "Do you like your job?"

It's my experience that people only ask if you like something when it's apparent that you don't. Do you like my tofu sculpture? Do you like my shrine dedicated to Burt Reynolds? And then you nod politely and maybe say something like "It's nice." But when faced with a question of do you like your job and having had a crappy day overall, the best I could come up with was "It's okay. It has its low points and not so low points."

Throughout the day it helps thinking that there are worse things that I could be doing, that I need the money, and that it will get better. The first two are true, the third might be self-delusion.

I remember dragging Matt into the Saint-Germain Bakery when it first opened in Ala Moana and we were passing by. There was a girl holding a tray of samples who was very friendly and generally happy. Immediately after we got out of earshot, Matt said, "She must be new." After I inquired as to why, he explained that it was because she looked so happy, he believed she must have just started.

I think my first day was a good day. There was a lot to take in and still a lot more to learn. And despite the stress, I am feeling generally happy.

Job! Job! I have a new job!!

*happy job dance*

(Hopefully I'll still be happy a month from now.)

On Friday evening, I went with my family to my mother's Hongwanji for the bon dance. Matt asked me why I go every year when I don't dance. I used to dance when I was little and my mother dressed me in a kimono and I did dance again few years back with my sister-in-law. Dancing aside, I reminded him that we go to pay our respects to the dead. (Obon is the festival of the dead after all.) Before we eat our fried noodles and sit around the circle outside, we go in, light incense, and quietly look at the urns containing the ashes of my parent's children. Before me, before my brother, my mother lost two baby girls. I go every year for those who have passed and for my parents who will always grieve the loss of two daughters.

Earlier this week, I was so happy when the plumber came to unclog the tub that afterwards I pulled Matt towards the tub, turned on the water, and as it drained away said, "Look! It's actually draining, no more bailing water." He gave me an odd look and I continued to marvel at working plumbing. Yes, folks. We were bailing out the water from the tub post-shower using an extra wastebasket. Except we'd end up leaving the water in the tub and only bailing it out before the next shower. This is how you create ring around the tub without ever taking a bath.

If I could communicate with my mice, I'd tell them not to crap all over their exercise wheel. Supposedly mice (and rabbits and other small caged animals) dedicate a particular area of their cage in which to defecate. And it seems that the girl mice have chosen their exercise wheel instead of the ample odor absorbing recycled paper based biodegradable litter that covers the entire floor of their tank. I'm just a bit perturbed that I just cleaned out their tank on Tuesday and now their pink plastic wheel is already soiled and stinky again. Next time I see one of the (slotted) metal ones, I'm buying it and chucking the (solid) plastic one.

In the past couple of weeks I've rekindled my love of digital cameras. Other people's digital cameras to be more specific. Darrett left his camera on the table at his grad party, so Chad, Ed, and I wrote messages on the paper napkins and photographed them for him to discover whenever he got around to downloading them. And last Sunday Chad accidentally left his camera with Darrett and I when we split up from our eating venue to meet up again at the movie theaters. (Yes, I've seen a lot of movies lately. My favorite summer movie so far is Bend It Like Beckham.) We took several pictures of each other, us together, and the passing scenery in our five minute car ride and walk from the parking lot. I'm sure the car behind us at the stoplight was probably wondering about the flash continuously going off. Because digital is so disposable it's much more freeing to be creative and impulsive since you're only really wasting battery power. And instead of just the normal shots of us posed nicely sitting straight similing for the camera pretending to be well behaved, which Chad had already taken at the restaurant, we have what would have amounted to several rolls of pictures of us goofing around, laughing, and being more of ourselves than a pretty picture.

The rain is hitting the pavement making spattering sounds. Matt is sleeping soundly in the bedroom. And I'm sitting here trying to come up with a new entry simply because it's a new month.

T3 was an entertaining fast paced movie, not as good as the second Terminator movie, but fun nonetheless just as summer movies should be. Matt and I caught the sneak preview on Tuesday evening at Dole Signature with a couple we know. We bought the tickets a few hours ahead of time and there were actually a handful of diehard terminator fans camped out in the front. One of them was watching Terminator 2 getting into, as Matt called, "a terminator mood." Camping out was really unnecessary seeing that the showing we went to was rather empty, but I'm sure the seats will fill up this fourth of July weekend.

My niece has finally put "Aunty" and "Jenny" together consistantly. Matt still alternates betweeng being plain ol' "Uncle" and "Uncle Matt." This probably seems silly to most of you, but I delight in being "Aunty Jenny" especially when called with tiny arms reached out toward mine.