A pictureless post!

Somewhat dark days are upon us here in Japanland. Unfortunately, it now appears that Nova is unsalvageable. The Japanese staff will not have been paid for a month and our payday has, for the first time in my 8 years with the company, been pushed back from the 15th to the 19th, though I hold little hope that we will be paid on the 19th. I have been in touch with Phil at ajarn.com and will put together a multi page article on the details of Nova's demise when ('if' seems unrealistic) it fully submerges. Obviously losing a job is not a pleasant experience, but I do qualify for unemployment and have spoken with the owner at Hills about increasing my hours in the event Nova closes. I expect I will transition out of this much less painfully than some people with families, mortgages, etc.. I am not one to wallow in self pity...even if my life has been a hard one. I won't allow difficulty to stand in my way. I remember a youth spent sharing a bedroom with my brother and the stigma attached to not having a Nintendo as soon as it came out (we waited half a year as I recall). But these facts only inspired me to work hard at school and consistently pull down a B+ average. Though I could only afford a state University I was determined to prove my worth and I drank as much as many of the working class kids though they had more practice throughout high school. Upon graduation I was forced to flee the United States because of my fluency in French. I spent many a cold night in Quebec with only a belly full of beer (and shared apartment) to keep me warm. Later I came to Japan. Again I was persecuted due to the color of my skin and forced to drink for free at the behest of Japanese people looking for foreign friends...mine is a life of woe. A years sojourn in Thailand saw me temporarily rich on cattle ranching, but the expenses of keeping a farm forced me back to Japan and into this mess. Oh God, Why me? Why me? Soon I shall have to live without the means to eat out more than several times a week and I may even be forced to drink wines in provenance of Chile or South Africa. Nonetheless, I shall survive.