it's not you, baby, it's me...
I think I would love it here IF:

I could get a good night's sleep. I've had TWO, maybe THREE nights of solid sleep for more than seven hours in the last two months. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying either. Weekdays strap me with studying and by the time I get to bed I'm either completely stressed or it's later than I thought. Weekends get me to bed late but I wake up 6 hours later without fail. The last two weekends when I've REALLY wanted to sleep there's been construction OUTSIDE MY WINDOW. First they ripped out the ramen shop... now they're putting a new one in. I'm excited about this because it means a new place and I won't be a complete outsider if I go there... but .... DO THEY REALLY NEED TO FREAKING BACKHOE AT 8AM??? I gave up sleeping after 6 hours again. Non-functional. Emotional wreck. Can't speak Japanese when I'm this tired. Ugh.

If I had money. You know the drill, I said it all below. Low budget= high stress. High stress= unhappy Kat. Can't make $10 a day here work. Seems that $20 day is too low even. I know it's possible to have fun in Tokyo without spending money but the problem is that THOSE kind of leisure activities require copious amounts of TIME. See below.

If I had time. This is the real killer. Dad sent me an email with all of these wonderful suggestions of how I could save myself. I'd love to do every one of them except that the problem is I'm up every day at 7AM to commute to campus and don't get home until at LEAST 6PM. Daily. Between Japanese (9:40-12AM), my 1 1/2 hour lectures I'm kept on campus and 2 hour trips to the gym, I'm kept on campus without a chance to invest myself in other things. Doing things in the evening is right out because by 6PM I'm tired, strung-out and hungry as all hell. Not to mention it's my time to study. So that leaves weekends, right? I guess I have time on weekends. Time to study, maybe. Maybe time to teach English for a few hours.

Now, on the other hand, if I could learn to feel GREAT with 5 hours sleep and get a late-night job, that might solve all my problems right there. A girl can dream, right?