One step closer.

- Hey, Kari, what have you been doing?

Well, this has been quite an eventful month for me, in an extremely good way.

First of all, I quit my job... I think it's best to start at the beggining. Here, let me share with you this short story.

It all started on the seventh of this month, I visited my mom since she was retiring (from her job). And while speaking with her, I obviously complained about my job. To put it in perspective, I did office work 8 hours a day, with some unpaid overtime, granting me a salary of 308.57 dollars a month (at today's exchange rate). While this is a normal non-specialized salary here, I felt I was doing  3 people's worth of work. Anyway, my mom told me that now that she was retiring, she was getting a... how do you call it in english?  It's not the pension, it is a one time payment after retiring. She told me she could lend me some money to start my own business.

I was happy and obviously accepted 4000 USD to start a stationary shop (I believe that's how its called, a small store for office and school supplies). 

I worked in my job up until the 14th of the month, since I needed to stay for a few more days after handing in my resignation. All the while checking providers and where I was going to buy stuff. I also had to go register my business to the government and do all that paperwork.

Last week I finally opened it, still while getting everything ready, putting stuff in the shelves and all that.

The place where I opened it was also lended to me by my mom (yay) so I've got to pay no rent for now.

Anyway, I still need to buy more stuff, so I applied for a government loan of 2800 USD to pay at 3 years, I already handed in all the paperwork and from what they told me, chances are high that I'll get it. The lady told me that they will come to inspect the place and assess it. So, if it looked nice, clean and packed with stuff basically, chances would be higher.

These days I've done everything to make it feel like a proper store, an aunt heard of it and she too tried to help me. She gifted me some $$ to buy more stuff.

I'm really happy to have such a supportive family. (In case you've wondered, my dad left shortly after I was born.)

Anyway, I believe in a couple more days everything will be set, and now I'll just wait for the call of the inspectors to come check out this place (that sounded wrong), And hopefully i'll get that loan.

So, how does this affects translations? It doesnt! Well, it did at the start, since lot of work had to be done, but I'll be able to just sit and translate while no clients come!

I mean, the first day I opened I only sold 1 bubblegum, ONE! But I guess that was to be expected, since I'm still missing materials.

Also, don't go thinking I opened something big, its not that grandiose. Its just a small store where in the future I might have an employee, but currently there's only me.

Anyway, with this, I'll finally be able to have time of my own. According to my calculations, the next three years will be a bit rough but after that things will get better.

And at the very very least, I'll have the time I used for transportation to use it instead for translations.

I really want to pick up the pace of the translation, since I have my eye on other novels but I dont want to pick anything long until after I finish High Spec Village.

Anyway, I wanted to express my thanks to you, since you, my patreons were the ones who kept me from dropping translating. And the translation was the main reason I wanted to find something else to do instead of staying in that job I had.

So, it was all thanks to you that I finally have my own business.

Thank you, thank you THANK YOU!

I also might finally have the time to write!

It is a small store, it lacks many things, I currently make less than in my last job, but finally it is something I can call my own.

Anyway, back to work, I'll get back to translating probably tomorrow, or today if I finish sooner.

(The exchange rate makes it seems like so little, but 2800 USD is the limit of the amount you can ask in a government loan for a non corporate business)