My worst roommate experience ever. (Chapter 1 of 3)

November is the month of fall harvests and Thanksgiving. It also has been a month of transition for us a few times now. Our first roommates moved in around November. And our second one as well, and now our third one.

In Hawaii, especially Honolulu, there are lots of people coming and going. Many people move here to enjoy the climate and culture, however living spaces are shrinking in size and growing in price. So it's not surprising that extended ohana living and room/house sharing are even more common here than in similar urban areas. We are lucky enough to own our home, but because of the high demand and the financial, social, and emotional benefits that having another adult in the home can bring, we rent out our 2nd bedroom.

Unfortunately, sometimes this arrangement can bring more hardships than benefits. And it really drove home the lesson I learned with my parents; if someone is consistently bringing negative energy into your life and cannot treat your family with basic respect, they need to go.

Our housemate this past 2 years was someone I had
already lived with once so one could argue that I should have seen this coming. However I tend to be an optimist and I believe everyone deserves one second chance. But as sad as it is, some people refuse to improve no matter how many chances are handed to them.



This cautionary tale is over ten years in the making.



Chapter 1- The beginning.


When I first started attending UH Manoa to study Japanese in 2003, I was a blond haired boy-crazy hard partying 17 year old "otaku." I joined the campus's Japanese Culture Club and Anime Club and made many friends. One of these friends is the main character of the tale, I'll call him "CM" as those are his initials and they also stand for "Coffee Master" "Crusty Mattress", etc. there are many descriptions that could work here.

CM was working towards a double degree in English and Japanese, and was already pretty far along in it when I met him. He lived in the dorms that year, and the following year he was commuting from his family's house a few cities away. I spent a year in Japan, and we agreed that when I came back we would look for a place off-campus to rent with a couple of other people, and split the cost 4 ways. Our 2 other roommates would be: CG for Cool Guy or Cheese Guy (he's from Wisconsin), another soon graduating Japanese major, and CM's long-distance boyfriend (CMBF) who would be moving to Hawaii and living with us as well.

We found a place, put about 1/3 of the deposit each (CG and I actually put down a bit more since CM didn't have enough money.) and CG and I moved in with our suitcases and we were set. Being in college and living here and there has a tendency to make you a pretty light traveler. CMBF also came with a couple of suitcases and was set up pretty quickly.

CM, however, was still not moved in. He called us and a bunch of our friends from the college to the home to help him move. His stepfather was driving a truckload over from the house. We had to wait for him until very late since he was several hours later than promised, and after we all helped him unload a dozen or two boxes of books and DVDs that he "needed" plus his desk, his bed, etc. he offered us nothing for our help. Well, at least he was all moved in now.

Or so we thought. A few days or weeks later, we started getting deliveries. A brand new couch, a huge pots and pans set, dining table and chairs, etc. Apparently, having thousands of dollars in student loan debt, owing over a thousand dollars to CG and me already for our portions of the deposit we paid for him and the first month's rent he was short wasn't enough. He needed to get a credit card and rack up thousands of dollars in debt there as well.

CG had gotten him a part-time job at the Starbucks he worked at, and the pay was minimum wage. CM earned about $700/month. He only took two classes per semester at that point. Yet for the year we lived there, he never went to class, never got a second job, and was constantly short on the rent. He ended up failing the same two classes three separate times each. He signed up, paid (well, FAFSA did) proceeded to not even bother to show up, didn't drop, got a failing grade, and repeated the same process another two times, which was pretty much equivalent to throwing his GPA and transcripts in the toilet and flushing.

There were multiple reasons for this. One was his new pursuit of being a "Starbucks Coffee Master". They had a program where if you studied and took a test, you would get a black apron, and no pay raise. So logically he spent large amounts of his own money on bags of Starbucks coffee plus various fruits, cheeses, snacks etc for "pairing" and doing "tastings" by himself and studying for this. I don't know if he ever got the black apron, but it doesn't seem like it would be worth throwing away 6+ years of a college education for.

Another was his boyfriend, who refused to get even a part-time job for the whole year he was living there despite there being multiple places within walking distance desperately hiring. CM simply wanted to stay in all day playing video games and watching TV instead of working or studying.
Or cleaning.

CG and I generally kept our clutter minimal. We lived out of suitcases, had a bowl or two to our names we washed right away after we used, and mostly lived off of leftovers from our jobs. CM thought that because he bingewatched Food Network that he was a gourmet chef, and he would use an entire set of pots and pans, plus several obscure ingredients he would buy full size and use a teaspoon of, to create whatever dish he saw on the TV that day. And then all the dishes and pots would usually stay in the sink for days, weeks, or months. At some point I gave up on using the kitchen and used the outside laundry sink to wash up my things. The living room was a constant pigsty except for the area around CG's couch, the dining area was littered with fast food wrappers and chicken bones, and the bathroom and CM's bedroom was disgusting as well. We had roaches and mice. CM regularly complained that no one cleaned. CMBF complained that people expected him to clean up after himself because he usually stayed inside all day literally doing nothing.

So to bring this chapter to a close, CG and I went our separate ways after the lease ended. We took our belongings, cleaned our areas, and got the hell out of there. CMBF went back to the Mainland. CM ended up overstaying for over a week, and was served with a bill for over $1000 in addition to not getting a cent of the deposit back.

I'm not sure what he ended up doing or where he lived after that or if he ever paid the landlord (because I know he never paid me or CG back). I heard here and there that he had attempted to go back to school but FAFSA blocked him again after another couple years for "Failure to make Progress" as he was just taking random classes like Food Science, Italian, Art, etc and not actually working towards any kind of profession.

As for me, I lived in a cheap sketchy room downtown for just my last semester, graduated, got married, moved to Japan, taught English, we saved up enough money for a downpayment, moved back to Hawaii, had a kid, bought a condo, you know how it goes.
When I moved back to HI, CM was a college dropout working retail minimum wage, and didn't seem to be able to hold down a job or stay in one place for very long (but it was never his fault, it was always them cutting his hours or the landlord being unfaaairrrrr). He was in a bad place, and I was looking for someone trustworthy to rent out our room to after our previous roommates moved back to the Mainland.



So I extended an offer.



(to be continued...)

World Prematurity Day, Suicide Survivor Day, and Thanksgiving.

As I was browsing on Twitter a few days ago, I noticed that November 17th is World Prematurity Day, and November 18th is Suicide Survivor Day.
Both of these days are important. Everyone should be able to have adequate and accessible prenatal and infant care, as well as mental health care and suicide prevention services.

But for me, having these days one after the other struck me as an odd coincidence.

My mother had minor complications when pregnant and birthing my brother, and then major complications with her pregnancy with me, I needed intrauterine blood transfusions and was born 6 weeks premature. After a lengthy NICU stay, I went home in doll clothes as I was still not big enough for newborn clothes. Also, needed to be constantly monitored because I was at high risk for SIDS.

And while I'm fortunate to not have lost a loved one to suicide, I am a survivor of multiple attempts by myself. The most notable attempt was almost 8 years ago now. Roughly two decades of physical and verbal violence and emotional abuse and neglect from my parents had resulted in a worsening battle with low self esteem, anxiety, depression, self-harm compulsions, and panic attacks. On a particularly bad day, I wrote a letter to my husband and parents, took a large amount of pills, and passed out sometime after the paramedics came, waking up a couple days later in the hospital.

How ironic and plainly twisted that when I was touching the line between life and death as an infant, my parents were devastated, but when I approached the same line as an adult, they were indifferent to my struggles. Not even indifferent, they seemed to enjoy escalating my pain and tearing me apart over my teen and adult years.

31 years since I was born and overcame that first hurdle.
8 years since I almost took my own life.
5 years since I made the decision to cut toxic people from my life.

Now in 2017, I am healthy and strong. I am managing my demons and taking everything one day at a time. I strive to take care of my physical health and mental health. It has taken a lot of work and healing to get this far but I am thankful for every day now.

World Prematurity Day, Suicide Survivor Day, and Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for my life.

Happy Thanksgiving.

#ThrowbackThursday October 2007

This month 10 years ago, I was in a very different living situation.

I was a senior at University of Hawaii, living in one bedroom of a 4 bedroom unit in a complex in a very sketchy neighborhood for $500/month.

I worked at least 3 jobs on top of a full time senior course load. I was looking forward to graduating with a BA just two months later, and getting married and moving to Japan within six months.

Every day I woke up early, took the bus into town, went to class, went to work, ate my homemade wheat/veggie/egg sandwiches, drank my v8, and after going home I usually fell asleep on top of my computer or school work before being woken up by long distance calls from my fiance in Japan.

One morning, I woke up with a sharp pain in my lower left abdomen. I couldn't walk it off, sleep it off, I could barely stand up straight. I called my boss to let her know I wouldn't be able to come in, and she recommended I go straight to the hospital. I took a taxi to the closest ER where they found an 11cm cyst on my left ovary. I was immediately ordered to not exert myself physically until they could remove it surgically.

In October 2007, I had the surgery. It was a same-day laproscopic surgery, they kept me overnight because of my low blood pressure. I went back to my room, ate frozen TV dinners I had bought myself in preparation, and since I had the surgery on a Friday, I went back to class and work on Monday.

I was on fire. Nothing could keep me down, not even a medical condition and surgery. I had my goals right in front of me so close--graduation, marriage, and life in Japan with the most important person to me.


10 years later. 2017.

I graduated, I got married, I lived in Japan and worked 3 jobs there teaching English in preschools, cafes, homes, by telephone, and I got to do some other stuff too. We saved up and in just 4 years we were able to move back to Hawaii and buy a condo. I have two amazing children. I currently work one part-time job early in the morning to accommodate the hours I have to put in as a mother and housewife, and freelance as a translator/interpreter.

My growing issues with depression and anxiety were finally starting to slow me down. I was becoming unable to hide it or hide from it anymore. My children need me, so I became more proactive in seeking the help I needed. I cut toxic people from my life and kept moving forward. I don't need people around me who don't respect me or my family. I also don't need people around me who don't respect themselves and make excuses as to why they can't reach their goals.

My sense of self and identity changed as I became a mother and in my 30s. I felt myself stagnate as I gave myself to my children as they needed me.
But I think I'm ready to take myself back. At least for now. I'm ready to light the fire again. I need to show my kids who their mom really is, and pass on that fire to them.

More weights are being tossed away, and more good things are coming.

Various musings - Home ownership and Health

May- Mother's Day....bittersweet since I have to see/hear about how great other people's moms are, but on the other hand I got to spend a day with my kids eating pizza and walking around a botanical garden. 

June- Chinami's Preschool Graduation - an important milestone! We had a small ceremony and party at the school, and even though her favorite Aunty got her flowers and  a lei, I made sure she had a couple leis from us because local tradition is to just drape em all on until the grad can't see anymore. I never got any leis at my UH graduation so I'm going to make up for it with them! 

July- Chinami's 5th Birthday and Kairu's preschool debut. We had our traditional BBQ in the courtyard with Yasushi's fresh sashimi boat, and I did a Moana themed cake, swimsuit for Chinami, favors, etc. Kairu is a lot more shy and withdrawn than Chinami was at his age but he tries super hard not to cry when I drop him off. Tries is the key word. After the initial shock he does enjoy all the toys and songs, I'm told. 

August- the 3rd anniversary of purchasing our home. For me, 3 years is kind of a long time to stay in one place. I've been moving from place to place ever since I was a small child. The longest stay I had in white picket fence bumfuck PA wasn't exactly the most amazing time of my life, and the years after that I was moving in and out of places as much as 3x/year. So recently I've become aware of the fact that if I don't clean things, they may never get cleaned. There is no cleaning service, no move in, move out, nothing like that anymore. So it's my responsibility to periodically deep clean random things I've never cleaned before. Behind the stove, the door jamb leading out to the balcony, taking off the toilet seat and reattaching, many places I've never cleaned in my life are getting looked at. And while I was raised in a household where I was violently beaten for not tidying my shoes properly, surprisingly enough I was never really taught practical, useful information about cleaning, laundry, etc. so recently I have been learning a lot of new things at home. 

September- my 31st birthday. We went to a tattoo shop to get a consult for my long-awaited second tattoo! My first tattoo(s) were done at age 18 and 21, 3 flowers on my left pelvis, and they are all stretched out and spread out so time for some new and exciting ink to celebrate....well, to celebrate me being myself finally! I had a few designs I was thinking of but the one I felt closest to at this stage in my life was a pinwheel. 5 sides/colors to represent the 5 elements, a common theme in nature based religions and some pop culture as well. The pinwheel itself is derived from the pinwheels used to promote awareness against child abuse. Altogether it's a symbol of my true spirituality and love towards my children. A tiny little detail is a semicolon on the stick holding the pinwheel up, representing my struggle with mental illness and my past suicide attempts. The sentence is definitely not over yet! 

On that note, Yasushi took the initiative to get the whole family life insurance policies. It was a race to get all the paperwork done before my birthday to lock in 30 year old rates. And as I did the physical exams I was so proud and grateful that we are both in great health, very likely because we eat a variety of whole foods and stay active. Especially now that we have kids, it's so important for us to live out our full potential and be there for them as long as we possibly can, and also to set them up with good diet and exercise habits. 

The past few months have been good, and for some reason I feel like October, November are going to be even better. We are getting rid of more toxins and pollution from our home and hopefully welcoming more health, positivity, and motivation to be our best selves. 

Spring!!

It's already Spring, which means Ostara/Spring Equinox for us Pagan leaning people, Passover for the Jewish, and Easter for Christians. In March, my husband acknowledged that he has officially been an executive chef for two years. We solemnly noted that it had been six years since that tragedy on 3/11. We joyfully celebrated our son's first birthday on 3/16 with a small BBQ attended by beloved friends and family. 3/21 was officially the first day of Spring, and not too much later, cherry blossoms began to bloom in Japan.

Time is flying by so fast....I can't believe it's already been a whole year since I gave birth to "Kyle" in our home, with my husband, daughter, best friend and fairy god-midwife-mother by my side. I feel so happy and blessed to be able to give him a stable home, a loving family, and a good healthy start in life. He is a sweet, funny, active boy who already walks, dances, gives kisses, and responds to his name with an "ah". He also, just like his sister, spoke his first word just a few short weeks after his first birthday...except while hers was "Thank you" his is "Douzo" (Here you are in Japanese). These two continue to surprise and amaze me with how well they mesh together.

Coincidentally, on my son's birthday, I also recieved an acceptance letter for Chinami to a local charter school. Chinami starts Kindergarten in the fall, and since we don't live in the best school district and don't have the finances for private school, I have been applying for charter schools and geographic exemptions on her behalf. The school she was accepted to goes up to 8th grade, so barring any unforseen circumstances, I won't have to worry about more applications until then. It's also walking distance from home, which makes things a lot easier for all of us. And lucky for her brother as he will get priority in the lottery when he's old enough to enter.

The past year being a mostly stay at home mom has been kind of lonely at times and every day is a challenge to myself to stay active and stay positive. I have consistently been keeping my resume current and staying in the job market, and I have had to turn down a few attractive offers due to the circumstances of having to raise 2 children. However,with Kairu turning 1, it's time for him to prepare to enter daycare as his sister prepares to leave. I've already been putting myself back out there, making more and more connections in the community, and starting some interesting things, one of them strangely enough involving a renovation of an enormous mansion in Hawaii Kai. It will be a relief when I start getting more income, and I love challenging myself and furthering my abilities in Japanese and other fields. And one more thing I'm looking forward to with Kairu becoming more independent is being able to zip around on my bicycle more and more!! Well, at least I can do it all year round! Happy Spring to everyone not living in the tropics!

#2006vs2016

This hashtag has been going around on Twitter for the last few weeks, and I feel that a picture, or 140 characters would not be nearly enough to sum up what #2006vs2016 means to me.

When 2006 started, I was living in Japan, doing the third year of what would be 4 1/2 short years culminating in a B.A. in Japanese from University of Hawaii. Soon into the year, I got engaged to my long time, long distance boyfriend. I also lost my future father-in-law in a tragic accident, and the resulting stress made my already overworked system break down, and the anxiety and depression I had been wrestling with since my early teens went into over-drive, and I started having regular panic attacks. I made a trip back to the US to reset my visa before staying in Japan for the summer. Over the summer I found Youtube and began what would come to be known as "vlogging". After summer, I went back to start my 4th year and started living off-campus with a few roommates.
 I was 19 turning 20, engaged to a man living in another country across the ocean, a full time student with 2 jobs or more, dealing with what I thought was just a bad reaction to stress and grief.

In 2016, I am in Hawaii after a few amazing years living in Japan. My husband and I have been married for almost 9 years now and we welcomed our second child in March. I work part-time for one of the biggest Japanese tourism companies in the world, at an easy low-paying job with benefits. The hours work well with being a full-time stay at home mom, and when the kids get older I will work at another place or two again. I also live in a condo we own, and we rent out our bedroom........to one of my roommates from 2006, who sadly never took the advice and opportunities given to him way back then and is still paying for bad decisions he made and continues to make regarding his finances and his own physical health.
I have been working on my anxiety and depression as much as I can with the help of therapy, supplements, and living a healthy lifestyle in general. Getting diagnosed with C-PTSD and really finding a root cause has helped a lot.

The past 10 years have been amazing, and I am excited for the next 50, or 60, or however many more I have left.

Work, work, and medical appointments.

I returned to my part-time job in Waikiki from June 1st. And just like that, now it's July and I'm not really sure how that happened.

My work routine isn't that hard. I wake up at 2:30AM or so, come out of the bedroom once to get ready for work, change clothes, have a little something to eat/drink if I need to, sometimes I pump an extra couple ounces of milk to leave, then I pack a bottle and a little extra in the mini cooler that came with our bottle warmer and put the ice pack in, and go back into the bedroom to change and feed Kairu again before I go down and get my bicycle. I ride my bike to work, and am back home by 9AM so Yasushi can take a nap before he has to leave for his long day starting at 10AM.

I take care of the kids and clean the house and cook and our day ends around 8PM, hopefully. It's harder on my husband than it is on me to deal with the 5AM feeding, especially when Kairu doesn't want to drink from a bottle. But I'm thankful that I have his support, so I can go out and at least contribute a little bit to our household by making sure we have health insurance, and earn a little towards the mortgage and my 401K.

The past month we have been in and out of various doctors. The family had our routine teeth cleaning and dentist check-ups, Kairu had his 2 month check up, heel prick, and newborn hearing screening done, and the 3 month check up too. Chinami had some shots, her yearly blood screening, and ear and eye tests.

We needed to have her vision and hearing tested because they had general screenings at her preschool and I got a call that there were some concerns about her vision and her right ear. They wouldn't tell me anything specific, just to bring the results paper to her doctor. I called our pediatrician and explained, and made an appointment for her and for Kairu's 2 month checkup. The pediatrician didn't see any problems externally when he looked in her ears, and he gave me the name and number of the audiologist at Kapiolani Hospital. I made an appointment for the second week of June, which was pushed back until the last week of June, for Chinami and Kairu to get a screening. Kairu was awake but quiet, and his results were fine. Chinami did a few types of tests and confirmed that she is pretty much deaf in her right ear.

At this point, I wasn't shocked. Yasushi, Chinami and I had all had enough time to get through our shock and figure things out by this point. At home, I used earbuds to test her hearing the day after I got the call from her school. I played music she liked and put the earbud in one ear, asking her what song it was. When I put it in her left ear, she would name it and sing along, but when I put it in her right, she would not sing or react. I asked her if she could hear, and she told me she couldn't.

Until I did this simple thing, I never noticed she had any problems. She doesn't speak as much as her peers, that is true, however she is bilingual and was meeting minimum milestones for both languages at every stage of her development...and plus she is more of a visual, creative and kinetic type rather than talkative. She never made any actions that would lead me to believe she was having trouble hearing, so my guess is that she wasn't. She hears just fine in her left ear, and so it never slowed her down. In fact, until Yasushi and I found out and made a fuss about it, she probably didn't notice anything was different herself, and felt that her hearing was normal.

Now that we brought it to her attention, she acknowledges it herself from time to time as well. Like now when she thinks something is too loud, she will put a hand over her left ear. When I whisper something in her left ear, she giggles and points to her right ear, and I whisper in that one and she giggles again and says "nope, can't hear" When she ignores me I go "I know you heard that, I said it to your left ear" and she laughs. And when we watched America's Got Talent and the hearing-impaired comedian had his audition, and they showed his backstory and his hearing aids, Chinami got a concerned look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong, she pointed and said "He can't hear..." and then she pointed to her right ear. I was stunned by the connection she had just made, and reassured her that she still has another ear that hears just fine and she smiled again.

From what the audiologist said, the next step is to have her checked at an ENT to rule out anything structural, and there is the option of a special hearing aid and surgery when she gets older to basically put a microphone by her left year and connect it to the right side, so when someone talks to her left side it will be like she is hearing it with her right. The doctor showed us the pre-surgery hearing aid and Chinami made the most epic not impressed face, so we might pass on that. There are lots of people that live long and full lives with the sound turned off in one ear. Plus, at the eye doctor her right eye tested at 0.5 so she will need glasses eventually....and glasses can be a much cooler fashion accessory.

Plus as I said before, she is a visual learner anyway. She knew her ABCs and hiragana before she was 2, and now she is learning to sight read words in English. I point to words on signs and labels and books and she knows words for fruits, colors, etc. I am trying to get her into phonics but I have heard that some kids just learn words by sight and learn how to read that way as well, so whatever works for her.

Kairu, as always, is a fat and happy little ball of marshmallow fluff. Amazing how from that, Chinami has grown into a crazy, wild, left-handed, deaf in one side princess. I love watching them grow and am always looking forward to the future.