mood: tired but feeling accomplished
currently working on: All the King's Women
dreamed last night: that I won a $30 million jackpot (lottery) and spent over two months consulting lawyers and CPAs to figure out how to minimize my tax liability and to set up multiple trust funds and develop an investment strategy; I got nothing written during that time and felt extremely guilty and had to call Agent and apologize for the lack of progress on my WIPs; unfortunately the dream ended before Agent could say anything…anyway it was a weird dream 8O

Got up very early this morning…(well…anything before 9:00 a.m. is early for me) and started working on the story. There's nothing like blood and love and sex and pain…well, you get the point.

I think it went okay, but I could've done better by concentrating more on the story. Sometimes I get slightly distracted. Also I'm not sure if I can continue to write over 6k / day. Usually the opening chapters are the easiest for me to write, so I'm sure things will slow down when I reach the middle / ending. Today's progress chart:

On the hamster front — Buttercup is ovulating today, and Kuro tried to hump her, and we had to separate the two. It's so wrong since Kuro is her daddy. Oi. Shiro's been very aggressive recently, and I'm wondering if she's abusing Peanut. To be honest, I think Buttercup is a bit scared of Shiro. But then Shiro is the white specter of doom…er…mommy hamster.

I had my first workout of the year. I did some easy stuff with 22 lb dumbbells, but my right delt is feeling very tight. Must stretch before going to bed.

How's everyone doing today?

Hero Material and I've been watching The Closer recently, and who would've thought it would manifest in my subconscious?

A couple of nights ago, I had this weird dream that Kuro committed some kind of crime. I don't even know what he did, but that's not the point of my dream. The poor hamster was arrested, complete with teeny handcuffs. Shiro, with her litter, came to the police station to defend him. I was playing the Brenda Leigh Johnson character (the investigator, if you're not familiar with the series), so of course I asked her lots of difficult questions. The poor hamster squeaked in distress, hopping around on the table, but I didn't believe that she was telling me the truth. Meanwhile the infant hamsters were writhing on the table, blind, deaf and hairless. It was just really surreal. Kuro told Shiro he loved her, and the dream more or less ended.

On the non-weird-dream / hamster front, the weather's been odd. The temperature plunged suddenly, and it's freezing here. The big news here is the “massive” layoffs of maybe 2,000 workers or so by several local corporations. In Japan, there are two tiers of employment: seishain (full-time regular company workers) and contract / temporary workers. The latter category is broken down into two categories: shokutaku shain and hakken shain. Shokutaku shain is someone employed directly by the company on a short-term contractual basis, usually for a year. Hakken shain is what most Americans consider temp workers, meaning the company got them through temp agencies. When companies decide to cut costs, they usually let go of their contract / temp workers first. Currently Japan still clings to lifetime employment, and companies have certain obligations to their seishain. That includes not firing them first, paying for their health and pension insurance premiums, giving perks, bonuses, etc. (Contract / temp workers do not receive any bonuses or pay raises, etc.) Due to all this inequity in employment, a lot of non-seishain have been protesting the recent layoffs, etc. Furthermore, IBM Japan laid off its seishain (gasp!), which created even more drama. Oi.

BTW — The Big Three bailout is a huge conversation topic in Japan. After all, it does affect Japanese firms. Auto suppliers hope for the bailout since many of them have contracts with the Big Three. I enjoy reading financial analyses, etc. but if I read another person write that Japanese firms have a huge cost advantage because they get free health insurance and pension, I'm going to scream. I've been in two countries with nationalized health care. It is not free. Everyone must pay. People pay about $400 or so per month, and if they're seishain, companies pay a big chunk of it. Companies also pay for their pensions. If that's not bad enough, Japanese companies must ensure that their workers aren't overweight or overly rotund around the middle or pay an enormous fine to the Health Ministry for overburdening the national health insurance system. Furthermore, the government had a huge screwup with its pension funds, and since Japan has too many retirees and not enough young workers, it's planning to double the sales tax. So please, stop with all this “free” stuff.

…her babies!

O.M.G. Hero Material and I were expecting on Dec 10. But she ended up delivering after seventeen days.

I was quite traumatized at first because I heard a lot of long squeals from Shiro and I saw blood on her. Ack!!!! She even refused her favorite treats. I was about to tear all my hair out when she returned to her nest, squealed some more then came out all svelte, minus the blood.

:wub:

Hero Material and I have no idea how many she delivered or anything. She made a super nest inside a heated house, and we can't see. I guess we have to wait at least a couple of weeks.

I can't believe I went over a week without blogging. I try to post more regularly.

Happy belated Thanksgiving. I hope everyone ate a lot of turkey. We didn't celebrate it since Thursday is a regular weekday here. Shiro is getting very rotund these days. Not only is she getting bigger, but she's also quite squeaky. She squeaks at Kuro all the time and kicks him out of the nest. Maybe he bought her a vacuum cleaner?

Furthermore, Shiro sometimes sits on Kuro. In Japan, there's a saying that goes something like “the wife's butt is bearing down upon the husband”. It means the husband is the wife's b*tch. Here's a example of what she does to that poor boy. Sorry the picture quality is poor, but they were squirming the entire time.

This is Shiro eating her veggies. She loves to nibble on them.

This is Kuro and Shiro fighting (or something). They sometimes paw each other and squeak. The picture looks yellow because of the reflection from their cage top, which is orange.

This is Kuro debating between a bath and a nap.

On the writing side: All the King's Women as my NaNo project…it was a failure in that I didn't get to write 50k words. But I also figured out what was wrong with it. So it's not all bad.

How's everyone else doing?

I think Shiro's pregnant. Shiro and Kuro didn't mate on Thursday, like they were supposed to if Shira had been ovulating. Also they've been hoarding a ton of food, even though I always give them plenty to eat. Hero Material is absolutely thrilled that we're going to have baby hamsters. My feelings are a bit mixed. It was a bit weird to work on my sex demon romance synopsis on Sunday while Shiro and Kuro were…er…doing it. But the idea of babies…!

I need to do some research on how to take care of pregnant hamsters.

Last night, I was stunned to read that Citi is looking to sell off its assets and/or entire operation. I remember how flush and confident Citi bankers were when I was interviewing for my first job out of college. (I was applying to be an investment banker, but I ended up as a management consultant instead.)

Interestingly enough Ford and GM are selling and/or getting rid of some of their corporate jets after the House hearing. I guess Ford and GM felt very bad after the harsh words re: their extravagances despite their “liquidity” problems. Business Week had a more balanced view on this. I have to agree with some of the points made in there. Commercial airlines really suck, in terms of service and reliability. You can never know if your flight's leaving on time or not. The worst are the U.S.-based airlines. Per Japanese businessmen I know, Northwest first class is worse than ANA coach. (I have no idea since I've never used Northwest.)

BTW — Hero Material and I tried to watch Revolver. Tried because t was the most horrible movie ever. We just gave up. The protagonist's motivation was very weird, actions bad (meaning they made me yawn with boredom), plot nonexistent, and too many stupid people doing random things. Yawn.

Finally — Lovely Debora gave me a “I Love Your Blog” award. Thanks, DD! :)

Now…I pass it along to: PBWriter and Plot Monkeys. It's sad, but that's all I have because the rest is all industry and/or finance-related blogs.

Kuro is a male hamster. 8O I'm going to have a billion baby hamsters. Anyone wants some?

Today's progress = meh. I'm thinking about writing a synopsis for the story actually. I think I have the basic outline and the story arc all figured out.

How's everyone doing?