I need to SHOP

The entry today has got nothing to do with the title of this blog. Just some (negative) ramblings of my life but this is my blog and I write whatever I want.

I was in a bitchy mode this morning. I blame it on the lack of sleep. My 3 year old is not feeling well and has been coughing thru the night. I went to bed only close to 2am last night (or should I say this morning) with a heavy heart (will talk more about this later) and got woken up at 5am due to my son's terrible coughing. Went to sleep on his bed to keep him company and never quite got a wink after that. I think I got a total of 3 hours sleep in all. That can very well justify my bitchiness this morning in my opinion.

So what could I do to let my steam off? I called my son's school to inform that he will be absent today. I was hoping that nobody would answer my call so that I could leave a voice message and at the same time remind his principal that she had yet to respond to the email that I sent her 2 days ago. Unfortunately, a teacher answered the phone and I had to talk nicely. But feeling unsatisfied, I decided to send an email directly to the principal after that phone call to remind her in writing that she is supposed to respond to an email that she received 2 days ago. Okay, I did not exactly write that but I think I managed to deliver the message across with professionalism.

This not responding to emails thing is one of my biggest pet peeves. I just cannot stand people who do not use their emails to communicate effectively and professionally. It's fine with taking your sweet time with personal emails from friends but it really isn't right to delay responding to work related emails that had specifically asked for action from you. I have always been very particular with emails and when I was still working in my last job, I dealt with many emails in a day. Even when an email did not require me to action on, I would still respond with a short message just to acknowledge receipt of the mail. And for emails that required me to spend time working on an action before I could give the sender a satisfactory answer, I would at least respond to inform that I was working on it and gave my sender an indication on when he could expect an answer. That, to me is basic email etiquette and professionalism at work. Seriously, how hard is that??

Enough of that.

So like I said, I went to bed late last night with a heavy heart. It was a sad day for Aiden as he played with his bestfriend, D, and his sister for the one last time. D and his family leaves Japan to return to America today. Aiden and D met at school about a year ago and D was the first kid who went to Aiden to say hi. And he tried to scare Aiden by growling but my silly boy thought it was funny and since then, it was all about D. Aiden looks up to D a lot because he is one year older and sometimes, chemistry is a funny thing. He just really, really like this American boy.

Because of the kids, D's mother and I hang out a lot too. She and her husband are really nice and we have been to each other's place for dinner of weekends. I am really feeling sad that I have lost another friend in Japan.

This is the 4th time this year that a friend leaves. I do know many people here but I don't like to call everyone a friend. To me, a friend has to be someone you enjoy spending time with. Someone more than just an acquaintance. I have mentioned many times that it is hard to forge friendships when you live in a foreign country so I'm always happy when I find someone I can call a friend. And so it is hard when these friends leave.

Everytime this happens, I feel like I am taking a bullet. Okay, that may be exaggerating but you get the point. It is always moving on again for me. A part of me is numb but another part of me wonders how long I can handle the downside to living in a foreign land with no family and real, permanent friends.

Maybe it's time to go shopping again.
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