We all have a few skeletons, even sweet little o'le me, althought I have to admit, mine are far less incriminating than some...  at least the ones that wouldn't constitute social suicide.

This week I caught up with two buddies who were important to me in Japan, however I saw three.

One friend who I made in Sendai, Rebecca, was a fellow teacher at the private language school we taught at.  We had a fab night  catching up in and arround the Valley and of course remembering all the people we loved and loved to hate.  My flatmates included. 

My first flatmate in Akita (second red dot from the top on the West Coast) was left out, she's the one from Dunedin who made me decide to transfer out as she was mixed up with the Yakkuza  (althought I think she was too naieve to realise). 

My other flatmates in Japan were two Australian girls, one from Tasmania who was loud, crass and came home late one night, drunk, complaining that a guy from work must be gay as he did not want to sleep with her  (he was infact a Christian and waiting for the right person, if she'd bothered to get to know him she'd have known).  The other had been there for less than a month when I transferred in, and left two or three months after, because she, "wasn't growing as a person."   Personally I was never challenged so much as when I was in Japan, so I think it was just her pretentious way of saying she hated it and didn't fit in.  By the end of her stay we were no longer on speaking terms as she was annaly retentively clean to the point that it drove me nuts.  One day she had the hide to complain that she spent eight hours of her day off cleaning, which was after my day off during which I made a very concerted effort to clean, and I finally turned arround and told her if it took that long to clean our tiny little appartment she must be pretty crappy at cleaning.  There was only so much devout Sex and the City watching, I paid $200 for my haircut at Oscar Oscar*-ing, I have to have the best of everything but still wear perfume that only costs $40 a bottle-ing# I could handle and still want to keep the peace.  I had reached a point where I didn't care what she thought of me.   Oh and she walked all over our tatami flooring in her shoes.  Nothing says Japan can f*** off like not even bothering to observe the custom of taking off your shoes indoors on this delicate flooring.  Additionally she was the one that deliberately didn't invite me out to the Christmas day get-together which she claimed was rsvp due a month ago only, when Rebecca told me that a few days later that every one was welcome and if she'd known my flatmate was such a jerk, she'd have made sure I went along^.  I think I'll leave it at that before going into all the ugly detail makes me sound just as awful.  But I will say she is the only person I have spoken to like that who has been outside my family and since I was 16.

But this girl (I say this loosely, she's about 8 years older than me) was from Brisbane and to there I pressume she returned, unless she managed to get her wonderful Macquarie Bank ** job where every one loved her, back and subesquently went to Sydney.  Strangely enough one day I got a call from the trustee section of the Suncorp super area wondering if our Responsible Officers wanted to partake of some training that they were organising as it would make it cheaper from all.  She sounded really uptight for some reason.  I said I'd call her back and when I looked up in the staff directory I noticed that the only person of the given first name had the same surname as my ex-flatmate.  I called the girl back, left a message and dismissed it...  until a month later when I saw a short burly grumpy-looking strawberry blonde walking into the building as I was leaving for a meeting.  Ten seconds later I recognised her.  I assume she didn't recognise me as compared to what I was like in Japan, I'd lost 25kg, drastically improved my dress sense and started doing my hair better.  Needless to say I had to regail Rebecca with my near-Regina*** experience.

On Tuesday I caught up with my other buddy Vicky, who I knew prior to Japan, and who is on a two week whirlwind visit of Oz before returning next Monday.  I walked her to central sation and went to head down the escalators to head back to my car when a short burly grumpy-looking woman rushed in front of me.  It wasn't until she looked to the side that I recognised her again.  I'm waiting for her to do something other than look broody one day - hopefully not assault me, but something.  I keep wondering if she wants me to acknowledge her so she can ingore me

But to be honest, as difficult and annoying as I found her, I do wish her all the best.  I hope that one day she can walk arround smiling as I often do in my more manic moments and that one day that low carb diet eventually pays off for her.

As for Rebecca's flatmates and Vicky's workmates...  that's a whole other blog entry, how long have you got?

*Her hair was, for want of a nicer word, ordinary.  At that time my last haircut had cost 6,000yen and had at least included layer, a head massage and all the softdrinks I could manage.

**I don't know if any one else knows any ex-Macca's staff, but for some insane reason they rave about how wonderful it is, yet none of them have stayed and I can never figure out why.

***Name has been changed to protect the terminally awful.

#She also claims her parents always gave her the best, but from memory she went to a state school, I think she more meant in terms of fab holidays and letting her go to uni instead of going out and getting a job at age 17.

^To be honest it was actually an awesome Christmas day anyway.  The night before the minister from my church had invited another English teacher and the University Staff Worker (another single girl) over for a traditional South African/English Christmas dinner, all their kids had returned from boarding school and we had an awesome time.  On the day itself I worked in the moring, finally had the house to myself where I cooked a great big meal, opened the pressies mum sent and watched a video over Christmas pudding (which no one else's mum had sent).  Just before bed time I went out on the balcony to look at the stars just as it started snowing.