Thursday, January 23rd, 2014.

Why do I keep forgetting to write the goddamn day at the beginning?

So I'm writing this while being super fucking salty. Lots and lots of things happened today, most of them being not good. And whenever I get fucked by a ton of things that go wrong or just plain suck, I just group them up into one convenient bundle that I like to call "bad luck" and just sulk quietly to myself. I mean, I'm not trying to be a whiny little bitch, because to be honest, I hate those kinds of people (probably since I'm in the military, where we don't believe in cheese and whine and instead go out and do shit to fix our problems or just deal with them) and would rather not become one of them myself. But honestly, even as I say that, you gotta realize that everyone's gotta just blow off steam a few times a year 'cause it's not like every day's gonna be a perfect day. All I'm saying's that today was particularly rough, and I still haven't gotten over it. Once I get to sleep and wake up, I'll be back to normal, but seriously, today was fucking annoying.

So for the important shit first: I had to skip breakfast today to assist Error and Akashi with the surgeries that Murakumo and Kitakami needed for whatever limbs they're missing, so that was incredibly fun. And by fun, I mean tiring as fuck. I thought I wouldn't be doing much, but turns out that Akashi couldn't really perform these surgeries by herself and really needed extra hands to go around helping her and stuff, and because everyone else was busy with training, drills, and whatnot, literally Error and I were the only ones who were available to do anything at all. So anyway, here I was thinking I wouldn't really have to do much, but I end up standing and walking around for about five hours from morning until early afternoon, just past lunch, using medical tools and generally helping Akashi.

I feel bad for writing that, because for as much as I'm bitching here, Akashi didn't even say anything. She's the real MVP, if I so must make some dank memes here. Five hours hunched over Murakumo's arms, deftly reattaching them together for hours on end. And as soon as we were done with Murakumo's surgeries, she just tossed aside her bloody plastic gloves, put on another, and said "Next!" Jesus, and here I was thinking that I knew that they weren't human, but Akashi's dogged endurance is fuckin' something else. I guess I could put it this way, that both of us were holding in our complaints about the hard work and strenuous operations, but we knew that we could have all the time in the world to bitch and complain after the surgeries were done. Do work now, bitch later if you need to bitch. Error, too. I thought she wouldn't want to work with me, but she did everything Akashi and I told her to do. Get that tool, hold this in place, do this, that. You'd think that looking at girls like Akashi and Error that they'd do nothing but complain and whine for the entire time. And I'm not saying that because they actually would, no. See, you've gotta understand, back when I was going to school, the average high school female student would basically whine and moan, asking why they had to do what they had to do. I mean, guys weren't exempt from this generalization either, but it was more so girls than guys. No, not Akashi or Error. Not a single word out of them other than what they had to say to make the surgeries today successes. And because of that, I've gained a lot more respect for Akashi and Error, I really do.

But after that, I sent Akashi and Error on break. Meanwhile, I couldn't eat - not just yet, anyway. I had to first do all my shit that I'd normally get done in the morning - paperwork, reports faxed and emailed from HQ, and whatever. Ooyodo had already filled out all the superfluous papers that I didn't really need to look at and organized the essential papers into one neat pile on my desk so I could get started on them right away as soon as I got back, which I did.

Now, mind you, this part's gonna sound a bit surprising, 'cause I know I was really caught off guard by this, and honestly, I think this's the one moment today that got me on tilt for the rest of the day. So Houshou comes into my office a little bit after I get to work on what was supposed to be my morning work, and she asks me to come eat lunch at least before getting to work. I politely decline, right? I just tell her, "Sorry, Houshou-san, this was needed to have been done in the morning and it's already very late as it is, so I need to keep doing this." Houshou insisted, but I still turned her down, 'cause, for fuck's sake, work is work. Food can wait, but work can't. So I spend the next two and a half hours or so getting all that shit done.

Here, before going further, I wanna at least mention HQ's email for today, which was really interesting, and I'm going to take it as good news for us: after they processed my report from yesterday basically explaining how my task force from yesterday more or less got completely rekt, they told me that they've decided to go ahead and send us some construction supplies to build an on-base dockyard, which they explained in the email that in reality, it wasn't really a "dockyard", but just a really big bathhouse. Apparently the logic here's that we're gonna build this showerhouse (but they won't be sending any actual personnel to help us build it, big surprise there), and the water's going to be a special kind of water that's filled with nano-bot particles that'll help repair the wounds that the ship girls'll have after battle. While it's good news that now the girls'll have a fast and efficient way of healing their wounds a lot faster than before, it still means I'm gonna have to look forward to spending what would be my hours off for the day and weekends to construct this thing. Goddamn it.

The second thing they mentioned in the email was that I am allowed permission to specifically request ship girls. The problem with this, according to HQ, is that it's up to their jurisdiction first whether they'll let said requested ship girl to be deployed to Okinawa. So basically, if they say "Oh, we still need this ship girl here" or "Oh, that ship girl you want still needs more training or is vital to our operations here", they won't send her and instead just send me someone else. At least, that's what I gathered from what the email said. I guess I'll have to explain that to Fubuki and Kirishima - well, after Kirishima comes to after the surgery, 'cause neither she nor Murakumo woke up all day today. Hopefully tomorrow, though.

The third thing in the email was that HQ wants me to compile a comprehensive overview report on the Moebius Four Armament, intended for the United States Government. Now, allow me to explain to you the absolute retardedness of this order. First of all, the Moebius Four Armament's been a clandestine joint-military agreement and operation that's been negotiated and worked on by both nations for a long time, at least more than a couple years, to my knowledge. So given this info, you'd think that this's been thoroughly explained to both governments of each side of the program, right? Well, apparently the Federal Government to which I pledge allegiance didn't get the memo and wants Japan to send them a summary of what the fuck's exactly going on in Okinawa. I emailed a trusted associate 'a mine who used to serve in the same unit as I did about two years ago who now pushes pencils in the Pentagon to try 'n get to the bottom of what the hell's behind this order, and he got back to me just a little while ago that it's mainly a few high-ranking Admirals in our Navy who apparently weren't aware of the Moebius Four Armament program when they were called to a meeting by Mr. President and demanded an explanation, and seeing that jolly ol' Mr. President's gonna find himself with his arm up his ass if he doesn't do what those dear Admirals want, I get to spend a night working on a comprehensive summary about the good ol' Moebius Four Armament.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuucckkkk this.

So anyway, after all the paperwork got done, by this point, you gotta realize that I'm really hungry. Haven't eaten all day, no breakfast or lunch so far, and all I did today was work, work, work, and I wanna take a break and go catch up on the anime that I've still got backlogged, but I still need to organize task force management for missions for the rest of this week after today. I went over to the mess halls, and I found Houshou there. I asked her if there's any leftover food from lunch, and you know what she does?

She fucking put a single small bowl of cold rice in front of me.

Now, usually, meals consist of a bowl of rice, some miso soup, maybe a couple different side dishes here 'n there. Me being an American who isn't used to that kind of meal, it was kinda rough getting used to eating a meal so simple, but you know, I just got used to it over time.

But a single motherfucking bowl of rice is kinda...yeah, um, not enough, maybe?

I looked up at Houshou when she gave me that small bowl of rice with a confused look at first. She knew what I was going to ask, 'cause as soon as I asked her where the rest of the food was, she said,

"If you wish to complain, then please get back to work."

...what?

I remember staring at her for a good five minutes. I was that stunned and had no clue what to say or even how to react. Like, at first I was like, did I do something to piss off Houshou? Did I do something wrong in general that she didn't approve of? Er, I don't think so...right?

So then I was like, "Um...Houshou-san, I'm the Admiral."

And then Houshou's like, "Yes, I understand, Teitoku (Japanese for Admiral, even though technically I'm not even of an Admiral rank, just a Commander), but no matter what your position, it is important to partake in meals. Meals are an important part of Japanese culture. If you do not understand this, then what I am doing might seem questionable to you, but please, it is important to take care of yourself."

At the time, I was too pissed off to really pay attention to her words. When she said that to me, I was just thinking to myself something along the lines of "Oh boy, I dunno what the fuck's goin' on here, but I think it's a good time to leave, yeaaaaahhh..." And that's exactly what I did. I just shook my head a bit, and I cleared right the fuck out. My logic at the time was that if I was gonna eat a bowl of rice for lunch, I may as well just pig out at dinner and not even bother wasting my time with eating only something like a bowl of rice.

But obviously now that I've got some time to think and reflect back on what happened today, what Houshou did wasn't intended to be mean or offensive, it's just how they do things here. And now that I think back, I've always eaten meals with everyone else during the appropriate mealtimes. Today was the only day so far that I really didn't eat with everyone else. That being said, I don't know if Akashi or Error even ended up eating any lunch like me either. Maybe they did, I dunno, but I won't hold it against them if Houshou fed them properly or whatever. I'm just still really salty that Houshou treated me like that. Of course, I never explained to her what I was doing the entire day, so maybe that could've done me some good, explaining some shit to her. But at the time, I was just so fucking pissed off that I really didn't feel like I was in the mood to explain anything. It was just so random to me and uncalled for that I just lost my appetite right then and there. Really irritating, and out of respect for Houshou, I won't call her out on it, but I really hope this doesn't happen again. I know that there's obviously a few cultural differences here that I'm not getting, but still, that just - ugh. Fucking pisses me off.

So the rest of the day didn't fare any better. I went back to my office and started writing up the missions for the rest of the week, including starting on making the comprehensive report for the US Government about the Moebius Four Armament (seriously, why can't they just get the people who negotiated the agreement with the Japanese government to write this damn thing). Back in America, we have this little saying that goes "when it rains, it pours" or people just mention something like the snowball effect, where when one thing goes wrong, suddenly it feels like everything else that can possibly go wrong does go wrong. Japan probably has a proverb or saying like that too. Well, that's kinda what happened for the rest of the day, to be honest. My pen exploded on me while I was almost done drafting the mission plans and had to end up writing it all over from scratch because the paper got ruined from the sheer amount of ink that got spewed out, Batsubyou knocked over a cup of tea that Samidare served me when he jumped up onto my desk where he likes to sit and made me go change into civilian clothes because my American officer's uniform's the only military uniform I have on me right now, and when dinner time came around, I put my tray on the edge of a table to go get another pair of chopsticks, and when I came back to pick up the tray, my fingers slipped from a bad grip and ended up breaking the miso soup bowl. I'm pretty sure that the girls knew something was going wrong with me, since that's the first time I've ever sworn out loud in English when I broke the bowl. Houshou didn't seem particularly happy either, and I gave her a pretty mean glare when she came over to hand me a handbroom to clean up the pieces and snatched them out of her hands, so that probably got on Houshou's nerves too. Normally, during dinnertime, some girls would hang out with me, talk with me and eat dinner together with me and stuff, but after that, well, guess what, I get to eat dinner alone.

I might as well have gone around the entire day with a piece of paper taped to my back that says #gotrekt.

So yeah, that's my one excuse to be a whiny little bitch for this year. Hopefully I won't ever have to go full bitch mode ever again.

When it rains, it pours...yeah, no wonder I fucking hate the rain.