5 posts from June 2009

I sat in the hot and sweaty city hall for half an hour waiting for my number to be called. Long story short: some percentage that it used to calculated your insurance premiums went up from 1.8% to 2.3% this year. Nothing else changed but that little uppage is the reason I'm now maybe 1,000$ a year instead of 150$. She calculated things for me and said there was no mistake. It's what I owe.

So I asked her if I could cancel it because I am going back to my country (eventually) and I'm going to start a new insurance and she told me, Alright, that's fine. When you come back to turn in your gaijin card, they'll send you over here to cancel your insurance. Alright, well, that didn't work. So I told her I already have a company I want to join now, so I don't need the other one and, like everyone said, there are all these stupid stipulations that prevent you from getting out of it. But, as if this was some kind of consolation, it's the same for Japanese and foreigners. Though I don't see why any Japanese folks would have a reason for leaving.

You can get out if you're leaving the country, or moving to another city (where I assume you would enroll again... I thought it was supposed to be 'national') or if you are getting enrolled in your company's health plan (but then only under certain conditions). If you don't want to pay that much (though it wasn't an issue before), or see a different/better plan on TV, you can't just opt out. What a crock. I'm trying to remember back in Canada if you have to be part of the provincial insurance. Maybe you do. But it's free (or cheap; never again will I complain about paying 54$/month to BC Medical) so who cares. The only issue BC Medical gave me when I left for Japan was that they said they never recieved notice of me telling them I was leaving and so I wanted to suspend coverage. They bugged my mom for 6 months of backpayment until she yelled at them directly about me having cancelled it in July.

The lady at city hall took a copy of my application form for InterGlobal, which they had never heard of, and they are going to check to see if whatever services the company offers allows me to be released from the NHI. They're checking it out and going to call me to let me know. I wonder if they copied my credit card information... I'm kind of uneasy about that because they didn't tell me they were even going to copy anything. :/ I figure if they don't call me back in 10 minutes (city hall closes at 5:15), I guess I have to wait until Monday for a verdict.

I filled out my forms for the new insurance company and coverage will take effect as soon as they get them.  I can even expidite the process by faxing them to the Osaka office.  However, the guy there told me that it's nearly impossible to cancel the national health insurance plan.  I can see why, the government doesn't want to loose $1000+ per person a year.  Well, fuck that shit.  I'm hoping that because I'm a foreigner, it won't apply to me.  I'll just lie and tell them I'm leaving the country.  Although, I don't see why they wouldn't let me cancel it...  But as if we haven't learned this already, the Japanese government operates on a completely different plane of logic than the rest of the world.  The good thing is though, they send you the invoice for it and you can pay it monthly (or all at once) at the convenience store.  So I just won't pay.  They won't cover me if I don't pay for it.  At least that's what I'm hoping.  InterGlobal has a 30-day money-back cancelation policy so if I find out that the government won't let me cancel, I can cancel the new insurance no problem.  

This insurance thing on top of current events totally killed any happy buzz I had going on.  I really hope to get this fucking health plan thing sorted out tomorrow after work.  Expect either a really upbeat happy entry or the bitchiest rant from hell.  

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.  I have that drinking party tomorrow night.  But it starts at 7.  Well, it'll be all you can drink so I can drown my financial woes with beer in the worst case scenario.

Work went well today... I need to figure out how to deal with Shinozuka-sensei's and Kubo-sensei's classes.  Both of them are so fucking noisy and hard to control.  Both of them are great teachers and don't take shit, but even they have a hard time with them.  And it's not only in English class, it's all the time.  Esepcially Kubo-sensei, I feel really sorry for her.  She said to me today that they make her feel like crying sometimes because they just won't shut up.  I copied tomorrow's lesson plans for the grade 5 teachers and highlighted what I want them to do so hopefully things will go smoothly.  Fudaba-sensei, the head for English, is seriously bugging me.  It's his first year teaching so he's obviously trying and still getting the hang of things (and his class is like so disinterested, but he says they're like that all the time) but it makes it harder on me when he forgets to set up the computer in the morning or something like that.  I don't have time to set shit up or do things that I asked them to do for me.  It's a good thing he's cute... but that's not going to take him much farther.  I'm going to suggest they rearrange the classes next year, maybe have his class during 3rd or 4th period to see if that makes a difference.

The Good:
1. Got a decent nights sleep and didn't sleep in. Was up bright and early. Treated myself to Starbucks in the morning to start the day right.

2. I had 4/5 classes with Kaneko but he sent me down to the teacher's room after the test each time so I didn't really have to teach with him at all.

3. Because of all this sudden free time, and no marking, I got to do some reading.

4. Nakamura-sensei helped me read this letter from my rental company. A new company is taking over this building and it was just a notice. I told him about my air con issue and he is going to call them for me about it.

5. GOT INOUE JOE TICKETS!! #16 and #17. I went before work but they weren't on sale until 10am. I could have reserved them online, but I could only use credit card. It would have been another 15$ with fees and exchange. :/ I asked Andrew to use his but he didn't know what his visa verification password was. So I waited... thank god he's still fairly unknown so I didn't have to worry about tickets selling out on the first day. Thank god he's not a Johnny.

August 3rd-7th!

I've decided to go to Singapore in the summer.  I'm not really rolling in money at the moment and I'm going to get fucked by shit paychecks for July and August but my visa card is all paid off and I've got a sizable limit (not that I'll be spending that much but it's good to know).  And I've got a bit in the bank.  I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would rather travel than save money and I'll just have to take a loan out for school. 

I've found some really cool looking hostels for CDN$30 a night or less downtown and found return flights for about CDN$500.  I'm going to check out this website Andrew recommended as soon as it's done being a bitch and gotten fixed.  I'll only go for 3-4 days.  I just want to rendevous with friends (Lydia!  And Yukiko, but she's actually leaving Singapore next week so I guess not... I don't really know who else is still there that I would actually want to see) and see the old sights.  Walk down Orchard, go around the old historical area of Raffles, the art museum, Chijmes, Fort Canning Park, eat satay in Clark Quay, have some beers in Boat Quay, eat a shitton of hawker food, maybe swing by and see my old apartment building.  I got that damn multiple entry visa and I'm going to fucking use it at least one more time to make it worth the extra 3,000 yen I paid for it.  I would be stupid not to go because the rate of the yen to the Singapore $ is sweet right now; I can make SG$50 on 10,000 yen.

I've asked Kumiko if she wants to come with me--she mentioned going when we met up a couple weeks ago--but her mom says she can't travel anymore (unless/until she moves out).  I sent a message to Anna cuz she talked about going somewhere but I don't know if she wants to go to Singapore or when her holidays are.  Justin is going to Indonesia in July and maybe we can rendevous in Singapore since it's just a hop, skip and a jump from there.  But I kind of want to go by myself.  I've never done a trip alone--I've done the traveling from point A to B by myself before, but never gone to another country by myself.  (I guess, you could count moving to Japan but that's kind of different.)  I'm kind of getting really excited at the thought of it.  And it won't be scary at all because I will know my way around essentially and know exactly what I'm in for.  And I can do everything at my pace and go wherever I want to go and not have to accomodate anyone else.  It would have been alright with Kumi cuz we both lived there and could go off and do our own things; it would just be catch up for us.  If I went with someone else, I think they would want to do more touristy things which I don't really want to do.  Not that we couldn't split up and do stuff seperately but what's the point of traveling together then?

I'm pretty much ready to book tickets, I've resolved to go regardless of anyone else.  Maybe I should wait until Justin gets his Indonesia travel plans sorted out but I kind of want to just do my thing and make him accomodate me.  I'm thinking the last week of July or the first week of August. 

Now that the site is working, I found I can get a return flight through Cheapoair.com for CD$468 after taxes and fees for the 27th to the 31st of July or the 3rd to the 7th of August.  I'm going to wait until I find out if I hit for tickets to a play before buying because they might give us a different date than the one I requested.  It would also give me a bit more cash in my pocket.  I just hope that the prices don't change much between now and Thursday/Friday.