I'm wondering why the heck I'm spending so much lately. I probably was spending this much in my past 6 months here. It's crazy...a one hundred yen coin is $1 in the US. Usually I think of coins as something like quarters...so I guess I should be a lot more careful when I go shopping. The smallest bills here are 1000 yen bills which is the equivalent of a $10 bill. I think that maybe I'm just too spendy with my money. It's freaking bad. I might be out on the streets someday if I'm not careful.

Anyway, keeping track does not seem to help me. I think I need to make a reasonable limit for myself each day. An allowance of how much I can spend on entertainment, an allowance on food and coffee, and an allowance on my bills. Not saying that I'm going to not pay my bills, but what I'm saying is I need to limit how much water I use, meaning not running the shower constantly when I'm showering. That's one of my favorite things to do is to warm up by taking a hot shower. It's still kind of cold here.

Anyway, I see that I need to really watch what I buy at the grocery store, as that is 2nd in terms of my spending. Okay, budget...$20 a day...30 days...$600 to spend on bills and food and entertainment. The rest needs to be saved. Hmm...that's not much I'm saving if you count rent...hmm...maybe I need to limit myself to just paying the bills and limit myself to $100 a month on groceries, eating out, and video games. Hmm...that's pretty tight. I'm wondering if I should count transportation...maybe not. That's a necessary given if you're taking the train. I never take taxis...too expensive.

Anyway, okay, $100 a month divided by 30 is 3 dollars a day. hmm...I'm not sure if that's possible. Oh well...I should probably try to limit the coffee or at least fast coffee...man, I can't stay awake then...oh well...I need to think about this some other time.

I just realized after reading my blog that I tend to spend way too much, even when I don't intend to. Bad habits die hard. Oh well...I wanted to make sure that I got this ps2 before they stopped selling them again. For some reason, it seems like PS2s are still hot in Japan. I guess that's true after the PS3 is not able to play all the ps2 games and psone games while the ps2s are able to. It looks like the PS2 won't go away that easily. And I was expecting it to go way down in price. Oh well.

PS2 baby!!! I bought the slim silver edition! oh yeah. Sexy, sleek, and silver!!! I waited a full year before I bought it again.

The previous year, I bought it on Ebay. But for some reason, the guy selling it didn't send it to me. Anyway, I guess it all works out because I got it at the cheaper price now instead of paying a heck of a lot of money for the system and shipping. I guess I could sell it on Ebay, but then I think...not too many people have that much money to spend on foreign PS2s.

Anyway, I'm expecting to not get another year at my company, so I figure I might as well try to test some of these used games out. If I don't like them, then I could always sell them. I still have to buy a couple games for my friends who sent me a care package. I'm low on money because of all the freaking video games that I bought. I should sell these games. I might be able to make a couple dollars here and there.

Oh by the way, Valhalla Knights is a pretty interesting game so far. One thing however is that there's only one dungeon right now that I can explore. It has different areas, but it's kind of annoying that you can't explore other places yet. For some reason, I think that once I get to the boss in the dungeon I might be able to leave town. The gates are closed and the only place you can go to is further in towards the castle and in the dungeon. For some reason, the dungeon leads to the sewers, a mine, forest, then it leads to another underground castle, which is the furthest I've gotten, because my guys are pretty weak. I'm expecting greater things from this game, so we'll see if it meets my expectations. But still, I've got to get my lessons done before Saturday so that one of my friends will buy me a game. He's a good friend. But man, he really doesn't have to do that, but if he's offering, then I'm going to take advantage of that. heh. Most likely however, I won' t be able to finish by this Saturday. Oh well.

I'm probably not going to go exploring here in Japan. Maybe I should, but I think that maybe I should save my money while I can. I could experience more, but I kind of wonder if I should be thinking of my future. Anyway, no more buying electronics this month. Wait until march when I hear back from my company. Probably they won't tell me until the last minute...oh well. I'm not expecting them to give me another year. I was expecting that another year wouldn't come for awhile.

Oh well...maybe I should buy a PS3 here. heh.

Okay, I'm talking nonsense right now. I think that I should try to find what it is I want to do with my life. Lately, I've been thinking...."Does the Lord me so little to me?" I mean, I haven't been praying all that much and I haven't been doing what I should be. But what else is new? I haven't been doing what I should be for the past year and 6 months. Oh well...maybe now is a good time to start. Put down the computer and do something that is going to make some difference in my life. Yeah, the first step is always the hardest. Then continuing after that first step is a challenge. But I don't want to live as someone who has climbed up the wrong ladder. Or entered through the wrong gate and went somewhere else that is not as good as I could have gone to if I had been walking on the right path.

Anyway, the right path...means more than just reading or praying, but actually becoming and being, and doing. But more emphasis to me on the becoming. Being is what I am now, but becoming is a goal that I need to reach. I guess life is not about goals, but definitely I need to have a new marker in my life. The last one was in 2000. It's 2007 now.

oh yeah, I need to stop buying video games. Unless they're cheap, then maybe I can sell them. But yeah, I'm seeing that domestic games don't sell for very much in the country of origin. I think that the reason being that video game companies don't like other games being sent out of the country, because they can be bought at a lower price in the country of origin than other countries. Lik-sang, a import/export company got destroyed by Sony for sending Japan PSPs and PS2s to the UK. I think that they have the same region code. It's also cheaper to buy things in Japan and online than it is to buy it in the UK. So they have banned selling stuff to those banned regions for importers.

Anyway, I need to stop buying so many games that I want to play and start playing the games that I have now and beating them before I buy new games. But we'll see. I'm thinking that I won't get another year here, so I might as well buy games that I can't get in the states.

One of my friends told me that in everything, I need to make good decisions with my life. Video games and money is just one aspect of that. I need to grow up in my decision making process. For example, instead of staying up late, go to early. (that's not going to happen) Or, get your lessons done a week ahead of time instead of leaving them till the day before. Or be prepared when you go in to do something and not caught off guard. He told me that I don't have to give up my childhood, but I do have to make some good decisions.

I see what he's saying, because it's so easy for someone to be living on the streets, because of bad decisions or bad luck. But mainly, I think that unwise decisions lead to worse circumstances. So I need to take care of that.

Anyway, I should be more careful with my money. It's crazy how many video games are coming out here in Japan every month. I can't keep up with them. I kind of wish that the original Japanese language games would be in the states also. But I find that there's no import shops near my house in the states. Plus some of those import shops rip you off. Oh well. I know of some good sellers on Ebay. Definitely I can see why they stay in business. But I think that it's sometimes ridiculous how cheap some of their games are. I mean, don't your seller fees cost more than what you're selling the game at or what it sold at? I don't know...maybe they're just trying to win more customers. Definitely I love that shop on ebay. I'm not the only one though. It's crazy how much time it takes to list something and get it ready to ship.

I'm thinking...about some things. Maybe I should postpone that until tomorrow. heh

One thing about Ebay is that smart Ebayers bid on an item at the very last possible second if they want to save money. Ebay encourages you to make a small starting price to get people to get the first bid. I don't know why the heck it works, but apparently people need to learn some self control. Anyway, most people probably have some self control. But yeah, I know that for these games that I'm selling, most people don't know about them now, because one just came out in Japan, and the others are not well known names. Anyway, I like to buy stuff from sellers on Ebay because 1. they do put stuff out at a low price. The only problem is shipping.

Anyway, there are some awesome sellers on Ebay as well as many crappy ones. But yeah, the awesome ones will get my business.

Anyway, it's not a good thing to buy stuff at high prices that you could get elsewhere. But I do like ebay because sometimes it's the only place that you can get stuff.

Anyway, I probably could get in trouble if I sell a whole bunch of new stuff outside of Japan. The games usually say, "For Japan only." I don't know why. Anyway, it's nice to play games in a different language if it's the original language. I still have yet to understand them though. But we'll see. I just hope that I'm not wasting my time by playing these games. Maybe I need to write the vocab down.

I made it almost through the whole week. Now I just have to plan for next week. Thank God that things are not as bad as they seem. If you can hold on for one more day, then definitely things will get better. Maybe not immediately, but definitely later on in life. Making good choices with one's life is one way to improve too.

Without God, I don't know where I'd be. But luckily someone shared God with me when I didn't know Him. Anyway, I'm just lucky that I didn't get pulled into a cult, or else, I might have gone the other way. Well...thank you Lord.