Kyle M. Perkins

Many authors/blog writers/facebook fanboys would make a statement after not posting for so long saying “Sorry for not posting, but I’ve been super busy.” However, I’m not going to do that.

This is a professional blog, and neglecting a post for almost 6 months is ridiculous! I’m not going to apologize, because I am at fault for not dedicating the time to post to a blog, especially one as important as this.

Even though I may not be a super-famous author like J. K. Rowling or George R. R. Martin, I do believe that something as important as this should not just be left aside (especially since I was never one to believe the fact of “leaving a site alone”).

Regardless, I won’t apologize. Instead, I’ll gloat.

I’ll gloat about how much I’ve been able to get done over the past 6 months:

• My job with Heart renewed back in April, and I am continuing to teach English 40+ hours a week to Japanese children
• My job with AB Tech continued throughout the rest of the semester, and also continued into the fall (the summer was not kind)
• Japanoblog has many, many new videos (including Ueno Zoo, Tokyo Hanami trips, rescheduling videos, recipe videos, a few new comics, a few food challenges, informational articles, and more, including a new site design which took me a good portion of the summer to complete)
• ALT Helper has almost taken a backseat, but has picked up (which is also surprising, as the Facebook page has over 100 likes, even though nothing important is on it!). While progress did teeter off in the summer, to make way for Japanoblog’s design, it has continued with database building, design implementation, and browser testing
• Meow City Café has started (at least, the initial planning has started)
• Life in Japan has become a bit more complicated. With a bunch of new bills, including Citizen Tax, National Health Insurance, Pension, and more, both Keat and I are paying nearly $1,000 a month just in bills!
• Speaking of life in japan, Keat’s going through a rough patch right now, so we may or may not continue to have dual incomes in the near future.
• Transportation has become a bit harder, since nobody told me that I could apply to have my foreign (US) license converted to a Japanese license, and that the process doesn’t take 2 months of classes. Hence, my International Driver’s Permit expired in August, so the company took back the car, and Keat and I are car-less, which isn’t too bad in Japan, but it is certainly a pain when my furthest school is a 60+ minute walk (in total), and the nearest grocery store is almost 30 minutes away…
• On a related note, I’ve taken the responsibility to replan, rewrite, and reorganize the Training Manual for Heart, because there is quite a lot that their training did not provide for that we had to learn on the job

I don’t care about that! Where’s the next story?

Well, I have some good news and some bad news: the good news is that Omega Noir is coming! The bad news is that it I had to transcribe the story – all 325 pages! Since Japan is a bit paranoid about having non-BoE issued technology in the Teacher’s Room, I carried a notebook with me and wrote story when I had downtime.

Which does mean that it will take some time to digitize the hand-written material into a workable format, and then the editing begins.

My hopes are that this story works better than the first-first draft, and keeps the reader guessing at every page, but only time will tell.

What’s in the future?

Honestly, I don’t know. My expectation is that I will still be writing, and hopefully Omega Noir #1 will be out before the end of the year, my job with Heart continues to at least the end of the contract, and things with the bills and transportation smooth out.

What will happen next year? I don’t know – we could move to Chiba, Tokyo, or move back home to America. Only time will tell…