It's been quite some time. About a month and a half, apparently. Now that I'm slowly easing into life in Cali, it's time for the Accountability Report to return. Posts about me living here, the process of getting here, and the LinkedIn story will come at some time.

Health - There are certainly some interesting developments here. On the food front, I'm eating probably the largest variety of food I ever have thanks to the company provided lunches. My vegetable consumption is definitely through the roof. I'm staying hydrated with water, green tea, and fruit juices thanks again to the good folks who employ me. The downside is, they also provide unlimited free sugary snacks such as peanut M&Ms and yogurt pretzels. I am weak to these items and have caved on a few occasions. My plan for this going forward is to eat some fruit (also company provided) when I feel the craving for something sweet. At home, the story is a bit different. My kitchen is 100% up to speed, so it's been a lot of frozen pizzas, peanut butter sammiches, and fried potatoes... also, there's a Taco Bell three minute's walking distance from me... and a 7-11 one and half minutes walking distance with many tasty sugary goods. Not eating at these places is going to be an exercise in will power.

Will power is a nice segue into exercise. I made the 1700 mile journey from my home with my bike strapped to the back of my car with the intention of using it as transportation for my daily commute. And I have indeed done that for a select few days. However, I'm finding it harder and harder to motivate myself to exert this much effort early in the morning. Having a bike tire go flat and the bad tire that caused it has not helped. Short story made shorter, I need to stop being lazy.

Finances - This has been ever present on my mind since my last day at Griffin. Moving has been no cheap task and my money reserves have been draining quite quickly. Higher rent, the cost of shipping my stuff out west, and the gas burned to get here are the biggest offenders, but also the lackluster final paycheck threw off the balance. Luckily, my first LI check and relocation money should be arriving soon and I will at least not have to worry about whether all the bills will get paid. If you read the paragraphs above, you know I don't have any fears about keeping fed. But, when that money does come in, a lot of it will be sunk into furniture-ing up my apartment as most of it was left behind. Also, that trip to Japan is going to be a huge cash suck. I think given a month or two, my financial outlook will be looking much, much better though and I should be able to hit all the goals I set out for in the beginning of the year.

Japanese - With stability comes free time for me to again pick up the reigns of foreign language study. My intent was to have a better working knowledge for the trip, but that hasn't panned out due to my own laziness and the craziness of the situation around me. I'm sad to say that my brother, who took his first college course on the subject, is now far more fluent in the language than I. くそ！

So, the reports to come should be interesting as I think my life stage has aligned itself with my intended goals. All I need to do is get my fat, lazy ass in gear and act upon them.