It wasn’t planned until last minutes, but I was invited for a day trip to Phila-del-phia.

I might have passed by the city by bus long time ago, but technically this was my first time being there.

My friends and I mostly looked around the Old City (historical places). This place is quite interesting. We saw lots of guides dressing up like 18th Century. We saw many horse carriages. We even saw a bride and gloom riding on a carriage to get to their ribbon-rapped car!!

I didn’t know that this city used to be a nation’s Capital for a little while before DC. There are lots of old looking buildings and streets there. I like the stone pavements though it’s hard to walk on. Another nice thing about this Old City is that there are many parks everywhere!! You can walk around the city, and if you get tired, you can just stop by one of the parks and get some rest with nice breeze, scents of trees and flowers, and good temperature shade!

How nice!

We do have parks in DC as well, but I don’t remember we have as many trees (=shade) as in Philly. I remember I always feel so hot and humid with strong sunshine in DC:(  We need more trees to make more shades like Philly!!!!

Anyway, we checked out the famous Liberty B&ll. I learned that there are lots of historical events/activities behind this bell and now all the states and some other countries have repricas.

The most striking image of the bell to me was actually "the Human Liberty B&ll" Basically people make the shape of the bell on the ground and took a photo from the air. It was actually pretty good. 

After looking around the Old City, we moved to Chestnut Hill and to Fiarmount Park.

The park’s riverside was very nice to just walk around and stay to feel the nature. 

It was just a day trip, but I had good time and was glad to see beautiful sceneries and to feel nice air in shades surrounded by lots of trees:) That was very relaxing, you know. 

what do i want?

what do i wanna do?

what should i do?

when? how? what for?? 

what what what???

would i ever get answers for this issue i’m having??

i dont know.

i don’t even know what these tears are for….:(

they just come out of my eyes all in a sudden….

out of nowhere…

how can i solve the issue when i don’t even know why i’m crying.

does this mean that i still need more time?

for what? to do what?

time often solves problems but not all the time.

i also need to do something rather than just waiting for time to solve them.

but i don’t know what i really want.

i don’t know what would be good for me or for us. 

i thought i was stronger than this… but i guess i was wrong.

i am pretty weak.

i knew i tend to feel lonely when i’m not with someone, someone particular.

but this time it’s really hitting me…:( don’t know why. maybe cuz i’m getting older?

i think now there are so many unclear things ahead of me… so i feel insecure about lots of stuff. i’ve been shaken by various things.

is it one of those challenging times?

maybe

maybe not

but only sure thing is that i’ve been feeling lonely… more than ever…

feel like traveling different countries

cuz that would be something different from daily life, exciting, fun, … etc.

that will probably ease my feelings 

wanna escape from regular life for now… for a while…

Shinto is referred as a religion in which majority of the Japanese people believe.

As one of the Japanese, however, I’ve never really known what Shinto really is.

I follow some rituals and other things because those were already parts of my daily life, customs, and events. I grew up with them. So, never really questioned why. 

It’s kinda like…. ….. ….. oh well, I can’t come up with good examples….

anyway, when I found this website–>http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/shinto/

(yea again it’s BBC. I like BBC, what can I say?)

I was like… "wow, it’s a good summary of Shinto!" 

I’ve only read the first part in "full lists of articles in Shinto": Beliefs, but I already feel that this website can be even a good resource for me to learn something more about my own beliefs/backgrounds/ways of thinking which I believe are highly influenced by and relevant to Shintoism. 

This is also good for any of non-Japanese people whose religions are very different from the beliefs of Shinto. It’ll definitely help you understand Japanese people better:) 

This week was the craziest week ever since i started working for my current job in various ways…

the craziness started on Monday. i don’t know if it was because one of the co-workers was off, but the office itself was very busy! well, i would say all of us, three assistants, were busy.

lots of phone calls, quite a few clients came over, one of other assistants needed to go to electronic stores to get a "recorder" and it took her a while to find one (she said sales representatives knew nothing really!)…..

and I personally had crazy time because of this client who came over with his family.

it was supposed to be a short meeting and easy one. but he and his wife started asking me some questions. i answered those with my best trying to make it easier for them to understand.

they seemed to understand the situation in which they are put.

but because of their difficult situation that i explained, they did give me hard time asking me even more questions about "possibilities" and asked me to have a meeting with the lawyer to discuss these "possibilities".

i can’t really explain why it was so hard for me, but anyhow this client took my time for more than an hour!!! and not only because of the time, but i got tired mentally… sigh.

i don’t remember what else was crazy on Monday.

on Tuesday, one of the H-1B visa application package was returned. it was for one of the clients i took care of. 

basically the package was selected by this year’s random selection (for details, you can check my previous entries on March 30, 2007 and April 3, 2007).

but it was returned because one single question on the form wasn’t filled out. yea it was supposed to be checked either "yes" or "no"… but since the notice says we may resubmit, we checked the question and resubmitted the application.

i was just hoping that the Immigration Office would accept the resubmission.

but then…..

on Thursday (i believe)

i was made to realize that this package will be returned for sure!

why?

because…..

one package for another client was returned, and i realized that i made a HUGE mistake!!! and the same mistake was found on the first returned package as well….

when i read the notice, i was like "OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT……..Don’t tell me this is it!? F*************K" (in my mind)

i don’t curse usually, but this time was exceptional… seriouslly. it was a super shock for me.

the thing is … "i didn’t know it wasn’t correct" because all forms we assistants prepare are reviewed and finalized by the lawyer, and the lawyer didn’t correct my mistake.

i know that he does know that point, so he didn’t blaim me nor yell at me for this. i think he was also shocked and regretted a lot…especially because of this year’s tense situation on H-1B visa.

i don’t know what to say. there is nothing i can do to make it work.

sigh….. this will of course affect our clients’ trust for our office.

especially i’ve been taking care of one of these clients’ family member for another type of case. i think they will feel insecure about his case by thinking about the possibility that i’ll make another mistake on his case… you know, that’s natural feeling human beings have. of course this is not just my fault, but still clients would have doubt/worries about me taking care of their cases if they find out that i messed up their family’s case.

i really really really feel sorry for them. it actually cannot be described just by "sorry" or "feel bad" or anything of the sort!  "NO WORDS" to properly describe my feeling for now….

the only relief is that there are "only" 3 cases that contain the same mistake among all other cases i prepared. yea i know three is a lot.

my excuse is …. all of these three were prepared in the last minutes (the end of March), so even lawyer didn’t realize this mistake when he reviewed the forms…? well, i shouldn’t make excuse like this since it’s useless anyway.

being professional is very important and harder than i thought.

also, this lessen made me truely realize that this job DOES influence/affect people’s LIFE!

i would cry if my lawyer makes this type of mistake. it’s not that bad if the application was rejected because it wasn’t selected randomly. but this case is that the application was LUCKILY selected but rejected because of this mistake…

now you know how bad this situation is.

it’s like… there is no way to repair the problem. appology won’t help.

2 of the 3 clients are outside US, so they can just stay in their country for another year and try next year. but for the last one, this rejection will affect her life even though she already started thinking about other options much earlier.

i don’t know how my boss is gonna handle this problem. i’ll just await his decision.

sucks…. sucks sucks sucks

i was literary knocked out… 

there is no doubt that i won’t make the same mistake ever again!!!! but, it’s too late to correct this mistake for these three cases. that’s the concrete fact.

i’m really sorry:(((( 

（日本語は英語の後です） 

some of you might know that every year April 1st is the first day for Immigration Office (US Citizenship & Immigration Services) to receive new H-1B visa applications (professional work visa).

since April 1st of this year is Sunday, the first day would be 2nd.

for the Immigration Office to receive the packages on Monday, we (law offices, petitioners, applicants, etc.) need to send out the packages on Friday for overnight. yea Friday is today!!

our courier service picks up packages every late evening. but only for today, we asked them to come to pick up first packages in the morning.

you know why?

because some of our clients and their employers are really really really worried if their applications can be received by the Office in time.

the thing is that there is a cap (maximam number of applications the Office accepts for processing) every year, and the cap was reached only after 2 months last year.

that means… there were still so many foreigners who wanted to apply for H-1B visa but couldn’t even apply last year. because of that, there has been a rumor this year that the cap will be reached even earlier this year or even just a couple of days!!

looks like my boss started believing or at least considering the rumor and decided to send all new H-1B packages we’ve taken care of for the next morning delivery service!!! also he wanted the courier service company to pick up those packages earlier to make sure they’ll have enough time to deal with the delivery process.

as of yesterday evening (around 7pm), i still had a couple of packages to prepare including my own. (actually i was still waiting for the signed papers for those cases except for mine)

so, i decided to go to my work at 9 though my daily coming-in time is around 9:40.

yea it was the right decision i made!!!!

there were stuff coming up in the last minutes…..

man, it was crazy this morning. of course i wanted to get my own package done for the earliest group of packages. at the same time, i had to take care of other two cases (to be honest, these two were supposed to be done a lot earlier! if the employers did do things quickly…)

but oh well, it’s my job to make up for clients and employers….

the good thing was that the courier service didn’t come at the time we requested. yea they were delayed more than 30 minutes. that saved me!!!

sigh….

when my boss was checking and closing the packages, i received one more H-1B package from Fed Ex … i did finish preparing the whole package like 5 minutes! but unfortunately, that package didn’t make it on time for the earliest pick-up.

but that’s ok. we requested them to come to pick up second group in the evening, haha. 

man, after the courier service picked up the first group of pachages, it was like after a big storm… i’m not exaggerating.

and thank god, this family of my client brought the signed forms early afternoon. they made it on time! i was so releaved. it was crazy for this case. client’s parents made inquiry and paid in the early March for the process. and i started contacting the company for necessary info. but this person never got back to me. i called and left message a couple of times, then i even called another person too. but for some reason i didn’t hear anything back from them for about 2 weeks.

finally i got to talk to this another person, which was this week… yea in the end i got the necessary info YESTERDAY! my boss and i tried our best and finished package to be ready for the employer to sign. but there was a problem. if we had used courier service, the package would have reached the employer today, the employer would send it back today so i’d get it on Monday earliest…

since we don’t want to take risk for not being able to make it in time for the cap, we suggested the client’s family to come to our office to pick up the package yesterday and return it today. yea sounds pretty crazy, rite? they don’t live or work too close. so at the beginning they weren’t planning to do that, but then they started being worried so decided to come.

i really felt bad and sorry for them. because.. u know i could have been more pushy toward the contact person of the company to do it first.

it’s good that they were pretty nice. and i did see their effort for their family member (the client is overseas). i bet this family is a pretty happy family:)

especially the client’s sibling did put so much effort this time. the client should be happy to have the person as a sibling:)

it kinda reminded me of my sister and brother. i would put lots of effort for them for their benefits and happiness. i guess that’s how older siblings would feel:)

anyway, this past couple of weeks were pretty busy for this H-1B stuff. i have no idea how fast the cap will be filled out. let’s see what will happen for this year.

keep the fingers cross;-)

英語でがぁ～～～書いたら日本語で書く元気があまり残ってませんｗ

要約すると、今日は就労ﾋﾞｻﾞ？の新規申請受付開始日にパッケージが移民局に届くようにするための一番早い日でした。（日本語変・・・汗）

つまり、うちの事務所では準備するパッケージがいっぱい！朝からいつもより早くオフィスに行って、自分自身の申請も含めていくつかのパッケージの準備をせっせせっせ。ほんとｷﾞﾘｷﾞﾘになって突如浮上してくることってのはあるもので、マジ迷惑だったけど、なんとかしました。

パッケージを取りに来る業者が少し遅れたのがマジ救い。

疲れたよ～

てか、業者が来た後は、文字通り「嵐の後の静けさ」（あ、それを言うなら前かｗ）って感じでした。

とりあえず、今日送れるか心配してたｸﾗｲｱﾝﾄの家族が昨日から色々手配を頑張って、なんとか今日間に合って、それが本当に良かった！！

全然私達のこと責めないし、私が「こんなｷﾞﾘｷﾞﾘになる結果になってしまってホントごめんなさい」って言ったら、「そんなの全然平気よ～。申請が許可されればいんだから！」って笑顔で。よかった～怖い人とかじゃなくて、にこやかな人達で。

はぁ、ここ数週間はうちのオフィスは大変だったよ～。

今年のﾋﾞｻﾞ上限がいついっぱいになるのか誰も予想できないけど、多分去年よりも早いんじゃないかとのこと。おそらくね、去年あぶれた人がいっぱいいるから。

とりあえず、自分お疲れ様。

んで、自分の申請にも問題がないことを祈ろう！

今日から友達が数泊でNYから来るからいい気分転換になる♪

やっと春の陽気になってきたし、散歩いっぱいするぞぉ～～～☆ 

(English is coming after Japanese)

今日は２つも初めて知ったことがあった。（ちょっとあまりｷﾚｲでないことが含まれてるので、お食事中の人はご遠慮ください）

その１：　立ちくらみと気絶(?)は結構違う 

よく小中高の朝会とか集会で、バタァって倒れる子がいたでしょ？

私は小さい頃から健康体で母親が栄養にはうるさい人だから、かなりバランスよい食事をしてたし、そんな鉄分だかなんだかが足りなくて貧血起こすとか(あ、気絶じゃなくて貧血だｗ)、カルシウムが足りなくて骨折しやすいとか、なんかよくわからないけど、栄養面から引き起こされる怪我・病気はしたことがない。

まぁそれでも立ちくらみくらいは時々あったんだけどね。

それが、今日はもう少しで貧血で倒れるとこだった！！！って経験をしたのよ。

しかもシャワー中に。。。あぶね～～～＼（￣Д￣*）

シャワーの直前にまずお湯はって湯船に使ってたからのぼせたって噂もあるけど、今までに結構熱いお風呂に長居してもそんな貧血起こすまでのぼせたことなんて全くなかったし、今日はそんなお湯熱くしてなかったから、のぼせたって理由は薄いと思う。

シャワーもあまり熱くしないで適温で浴びてて、ｼｬﾝﾌﾟｰを後ろ髪からおとしてた時は特に問題なくて、前髪と頭の上の方をおとそうと顔からシャワーに入った後に、イキナリくらくらして、目を開けたら世界がめちゃめちゃ白に近い常態で、呼吸もちょっとハァハァしてきて、マジびびった！！（＠o＠）

とりあえず冷たい空気を入れようとシャワー戸を軽くあけてシャワーから少し離れたんだけど、一向によくなる気配なし。シャワーを止めて1回バスタブの中で座り込んで視界が元に戻るのを待ったけど、これまた変わらず・・・・しかも、なぜかわからないけど、便意と(食事中の方ごめんなさい)気持ち悪さが急に訪れた。しょうがないからめちゃめちゃ濡れてる髪をﾀｵﾙでなんとかまとめ、バスタオルを巻いてトイレに行く。座っててもまだ世界は白っぽくて、息もちょっとハァハァ。少しの間座ってたらやっと視界は普通になって、動くことができるようになった。速攻お風呂場のドアを開けて冷たい空気を入れました。

こんな体験初めてだったからﾋﾞｯｸﾘした。多分症状が貧血だと思うんだけど、なんなんだろう・・・

前に1回、真夜中に激腹痛で起きて歩くのも大変でって話を書いたけど、そん時に勝手に出た卵疑惑があったのね。まぁ数人の人に絶対卵じゃないって言われたんだけど、その後はしばらく卵からは遠ざかってたのよ。んでも先週末買い物に行った時に卵解禁して、今朝ってか昼はベーコン目玉焼きを食べたの。また卵のせいじゃないよ・・・ね？多分違うだろうけど。だって買ってからすでに1回卵食べてるし。そん時はなんともなかった。

今週は睡眠が少なめだったのもいけないのかなぁ？　でもそんなやばい程少なかったわけじゃないし、昨日は2時に寝て今日起きたの1時だし。寝すぎで頭にちゃんと血がいってなかった・・・とか？ゴロゴロしてた後にお風呂入ってシャワー浴びたのがいけなかったのかなぁ～。。。

全然原因は不明だけど、とにかく、立ちくらみとの違いはかなり大きかった！！！

ということがつまり言いたかったわけです。

その２：　Explicit Lyrics / Parental Advisory(PA) ってものを知った 

昨日の夜からまた音楽をﾗｼﾞｵやｵﾝﾗｲﾝで聴きまくってるんだけど、何曲も気に入った曲があった数人の歌手のｱﾙﾊﾞﾑを買おうかなぁ～と思って、ｵﾝﾗｲﾝで安くなってるやつを探してたのね。

そこで、ある人のｱﾙﾊﾞﾑに、検索で出て来た中に全く同じCDｼﾞｬｹｯﾄだし内容も同じなのに、なんかﾊﾞｰｼﾞｮﾝが違うの書いてあるのがあったのさ。それが、Explicit Lyrics versionってのとClean versionっての。

なんだそりゃ？と思った私はアマゾ○の説明を読んでみる。

Explicit Lyrics

The "Explicit Lyrics" tag is equivalent to the "Parental Advisory" slug that appears on the cover of certain CDs. The slug is a label provided by the Recording Industry Association of America that denotes the presence of strong language or depictions of sex, violence, or substance abuse. The decision to label specific CDs is made by recording companies in conjunction with the artists.

「！！！」なるほどぉ～。そういえば、アメリカでは（英語は）曲によってはセンサーがかかる言葉が含まれてることが多い。そういう所謂悪い言葉が入ってる曲を子供に聞いてほしくないとか、子供がいるから聞けないとかって親がもちろんいるわけで、このﾊﾞｰｼﾞｮﾝはそういう悪い言葉を望まない人達の為のセンサーされたﾊﾞｰｼﾞｮﾝってことになる。

ラップとかのCDは特に、18歳以上じゃないと購入できないとか制限があるものもあって、CD屋でIDチェックをうけるそうな。

日本では見かけない光景だよね。

日本語には例えば英語のFワード程悪い言葉があると私は思わないけど、もちろんセンサーされる言葉はあるわけだよね。まぁ殆どが性的な言葉がセンサーの対象なんだと思うけど。

言語自体の違いっていうのも多少あるかもだけど、センサーかかる言葉を万人が聞く音楽に入れるか入れないかの姿勢の違いの方が大きいんじゃないかと思う。

ただ、日本語だと性的な歌を作らない限り、もしくは相当ヤンキーな歌詞を作らない限りｗ、センサーかかる必要はないよねぇ？でも英語だと普通に普通のこと歌っててもFワードとか入れられるわけで、その辺の人々の言葉の使用頻度の違いもあるのかな。

子供がいる人は、英語のCDを買う時、ちょっと気をつけてみてみましょう。

******************************************************

i learned two things today. One is the difference between dissiness and faint. The other one is Explicit Lyrics version.

i’ve gotten dissiness every now and then before but never had fainted. today, i ALMOST fainted in the bathroom. (to be specific, in the bathtub)…. i don’t know what happened. i don’t know what the cause was. all i know is that when i got the faint feeling, it was a lot different from the feeling of being dissy.

i was taking a bath (not that hot, good temperature) for a little while then started taking a shower after draining the water. i shampooed my hair first and tried to wash it up. it was fine when i was washing my hair on the back, but when i put my face with my top head into shower, i suddenly felt dissy. i opened my eyes and realized that the world became white!! (i’m serious. it looked almost white!) i was like "damn….what’s wrong with me? i never had such a thing before…."

i tried to get some fresh air by opening my shower door (i have a door rather than shower curtain) and stepped away from runnig shower water. but my white site didn’t change. so i turned off the shower and sat down in the bathtub for a little while. nothing really changed. but i suddenly got the hint of poo poo and not good feeling…. i had to rap my very wet hair with a towel and my wet body with a bath towel then made it to toilet. it took some time to get the regular site (not white!)…

it was also a bit hard to breath normally when i got the faint feeling, so i had to open my mouth wider and tried to get more air into my lungs. it was weird experience.

i have no idea why it happened. could be lack of sleep for this week? could be sleeping until too late today? (till 1pm)… could be lack of blood in my head because i was lying down for long time and took a bath and a shower right after i got up? or could be the egg i had today! (well it’s lower possibility, though)…

anyway, i’m gonna get some rest tomorrow to see my health condition is okay.

about Explicit Lyrics version, i got the information from AmazOn when i was searching for some CD albums today. there were two CDs which exactly look the same and have the same contents. so i wondered what’s the difference. then i found an explanation about Explicit Lyrics version (see above). many of you might know it already, but i didn’t.

since many American singers’ songs contain curse words, it looks like people have come up with an idea of publishing two versions: one without those words (censored) and one with everything.  

i should be aware and careful about curse words in songs around the time i’ll have my kids:) 

for your info, i never heard japanese songs that need to be censored. is it language difference? or cultural difference? or… social difference? …