i want out.

if i could leave japan right now, i'd JUMP at the chance.

can't waste any more time

being sick for almost a week and a half has taken its toll >_<

for starters, i haven't been to the gym, so i feel really sluggish. also, doing nothing but sleeping (and knitting mindlessly) has done a number on my motivation to do schoolwork. now that i'm better and can actually concentrate, i'd like to work harder and get caught up on my classes.
(i haven't done much of anything in the past several days.) when i'm ahead of schedule, i'm super-effective. when i'm behind, i'm the worst procrastinator ~ i blog and i shop <--sooo bad for the wallet lol

if i can harness my (aimless) restlessness and refocus that energy, i should be golden by the end of next week :)

SNOW!

seriously running late. update more after class.

this is from yesterday:
(p.s. it was a lot prettier than what the camera could capture)




test went well ~ 90.5%
...even with sleep deprivation and no studying :)

chinese new year :)

my family is nuts, but i love them sooo sooo much :)

giddy :)

for a lot of reasons ^_^




恭喜发财！happy chinese new year!

...this is pretty much a video about nothing, but i'm just so excited :)
[and still don't have the voice to express it fully, haha]

tonsillitis?

i don't know. judging by my symptoms and looking at all the possible things it could be, tonsillitis (hopefully not strep throat) seems likely. if my throat doesn't look better soon, i think i better take up on my host mom's offer to bring me to the hospital.

i've missed two days of japanese class and three days of electives. i feel slightly overwhelmed by how far behind i feel. i know i'll probably catch up in no time---but i'm used to being ahead, so i'm not a happy camper right now (for a variety of reasons).

my head is spinning, and i don't particularly feel like writing a whiny post right now ~ so i'll write one tomorrow XD

i'll hopefully be able to talk without my throat hurting soon, but until then, no video :(

the glass is half full :)

(volume needs to go up ~ a lot. i'm really sorry v_v)

...my point exactly.
it always appears to be recording, but then it stops without warning.
i'll try to finish this one tomorrow.

today in a nutshell--- it could've been a "bad day" on so many levels,
but it was still an awesome day (the way i see it =D)

why am i not asleep??

p.s. that glow in the corner is my radiating fan.
(more about that later =])

a quick p.s.

where it usually says, "0 comments" underneath each post,
click & leave me a little something occasionally :D
please? ^_^

"budding talents"

(it's a little soft, so you might have to turn the volume up ~ sorry!)

i have a ton more to add---maybe tomorrow?
(do i ever run out of things to say? lol ^_^)

marshes, birds, and getting lost.

much more happened at both the marsh and kitaoji station,
but i'm running late for dinner in shijo with a few friends...
so write more when i get back? maybe... ^_^

[edit]
after dinner:



(....this is what i sound like?? lol)

some things never change =D

i pulled my first all-nighter of spring term on thur/fri.
(yes, it's only been a week since classes began haha)

BUT
it was one of the best ones :)

let me explain. it was an essay in japanese for ono-sensei's reading class. the topic was very generic/not that interesting---something "confusing/perplexing/you've noticed" about the japanese language. however, i really got into it and wound up writing over 1000 characters (well over the mininum length). it wasn't the length that took up so much time. rather, it was word/expression choice and writing style that kept me up. i was constantly revising and finding better ways to express what i wanted to convey.

writing is one of my favorite things about learning japanese, but i have writing assignments all the time---meaning, that wasn't enough to make it an "awesome" all-nighter. throughout the night and into the morning, i had the (online) company of friends and family---my mom, alice (and cameron, curran, and mele), matt, leslie, and nikki =] even at 3, 4am, i was wide awake (thanks to caffeine, perhaps?) and wasn't dying to go to sleep.

how it turned out:
- i have an essay i'm really happy with
- high spirits after talking/seeing my friends on aim and skype
- making it through japanese class (sleep-deprived) just fine
- after a cool field trip & mini-adventure with mia, went home, had dinner, and accidentally fell asleep at 8pm while waiting for ofuro
- woke up at 9am today (sat) & i feel great ^_^

......seriously??

second day of japanese religion.

i greatly enjoyed the actual lecture, but there were some students (college juniors!) who were being obnoxious and childish ~ inappropriate and unrelated comments were made throughout the 90-minute class period... they drove me up a wall *grrr*

>_<

oh no! it's ono!

...not so much ^_^

for spring term, my reading teacher is ono-sensei. despite horror stories from other people, i'm actually looking forward to her classes. during orientation week, all the language teachers rotated to get a feel for each of the provisional levels. i remember ono-sensei making a good impression on me, but she was kind of intimidating for others. 

there's something about her that reminds me of the (very traditional) chinese school teachers with whom i had classes in new york city...

fall term grades in!

A ~ japanese language (counted twice)

A ~ japanese animation

A ~ language in popular media

:)

snow!

it began snowing during japanese class! it's gone already, but a blog entry was definitely warranted ^_^

i was told that it rarely snows in kyoto. there have been flurries here and there lately, but it never sticks around for long. furthermore, i've always been asleep in the past---i hadn't seen it for myself.

my spirits were already high this morning, and the light snowfall made me absolutely elated =D

missing middlebury like crazy...

it's finished

(and now, instead of sleeping, i'm writing a quick entry ^_^)

i finished doing my japanese hw a while ago, but for tonight, it consisted of looking up over eighty vocabulary words and expressions to be able to do the reading effectively. needless to say, the first assignment of spring term took much longer than usual.

and this is what i have to say:

i hope it stays this way! ^_^

a distracted mind

normally [read: when i'm at midd], i'm crazy motivated to study japanese. but instead, my mind is racing with thoughts about everything else. there's so much i want to do. and so little time to do it in. i want to get out of japan what i would want in a [read: my] study abroad experience, but moreso,
i just want to go back to the united states and do what i really want to do.

in other words, my homework isn't doing itself.
and i have no will to do it now.
>_<

the beginning of the second half

first day of japanese "class" went really well :)
sooo excited for spring term.

japanese religion was also scheduled for today, but it was canceled because the professor caught something on the plane ride over to japan... hope she feels better soon.

worked out to my heart's content this afternoon :)
so much free time today! i got back from the gym earlier than usual and still had some down time before dinner ^_^

....and tomorrow's friday! just one class in the morning. then a friend is throwing an all you can eat/all you can drink party at a bar that i have to get directions to---to which another friend responded, "don't bother. she'll just get horribly lost. i'll take her."

hahaha XD

the ties that bind

how is true friendship established?
for each of us, the answer is different.

in my experience, it is a commonality and/or a certain kind of chemistry that initiates the process. of course, not every encounter or even long-standing relationship reaches what i define as "true friendship". but this post isn't about my definition of friendship. rather, i'd like to put my thoughts into words about relationships in general. some last a lifetime, whereas many are a bit more evanescent. but all have their beginnings...

sometimes, it may be as simple as a blood relation. or a common motherland, mother tongue, or alma mater. however superficial these may be, i believe there's always potential for any budding relationship to become something that withstands the trials of life and the society we live in. unfortunately, most will wither away at some point, for much more than initial connections are required to sustain meaningful relationships. even friendships that were once solid are susceptible to being diminished to the level of small talk/superficiality.

i probably sound pessimistic. i'm not. friendship is something i greatly value in life, as most people do as well. over the past several years, i've learned a couple hard lessons about respect for friendship. i could write much more about this, but i won't here.

i guess my main thought is this: friends are not objects to be collected. friendship should be treated with care and respect. if such things don't exist within any given relationship, one should question how "meaningful" that friendship is. as mentioned earlier, i don't expect all to last.

and i think that's okay.

if meaningful relationships could be established with every acquaintance we make in life, it would be a beautiful, beautiful thing :)

a very "not japanese" new year celebration

if celebrating oshogatsu was hit or miss, it was a definite miss.

i slept in after an eventful new year's eve and missed going to the shrine with my host family. i had planned to go to yasaka jinja [a famous kyoto shrine] on the first during the daytime, instead of the eve for the countdown. but my friend wasn't feeling well, so we rescheduled for the second. unfortunately, there was miscommunication on the second, and we didn't go. and on the third? i was going to venture out to arashiyama on my own. then i realized my budget wasn't lenient enough for me to spend money for bus/train transportation. so i stayed in and lost myself in thought instead [which was much more pleasant and rewarding than it sounds].

my host family isn't as traditional as many others, so the festivities at my house weren't a paradigm of the japanese new year celebration. on the night of the second, my host parents threw a large dinner party at the house. i met some pretty interesting characters that night ^_^ i'll just say this much: there was a japanese man wearing a costume wig who got stripped down to his speedo by former boy scouts during dinner.

so i didn't see much of kyoto during oshogatsu, and i didn't put in great effort on my part to "experience" new year's the japanese way.

...i don't regret it.
[i have my reasons.]

to make up for the several uneventful days, mia and i went to yasaka jinja. we each rang the bell and prayed for good luck and happiness in the upcoming year :)

....more about this later.

the holiday season

...is without a doubt different this year.

one, no snow! :(

apparently, it snowed christmas morning, but i wasn't awake to see it. 

and it was gone by the time i woke up.

two, i picked out gifts that i thought my host nephews and nieces would like---my host mom tells me they loved them ^_^  but i didn't even get to give them their presents myself. i had been out with my friends, and i didn't realize that we would exchange presents earlier in the day.

earlier in december, i had hoped to help decorate for christmas, but that didn't happen either :(

then i missed baking cookies at my host sister mari's house.

the most "christmas-y" thing i did this year was go to a get-together at lofgren-sensei's house. but it's a traditional japanese house, and we ate sushi. (which was perfectly fine ~ it just doesn't bring back old memories of christmas) but there was a tree! and we did play a couple card games though! i thoroughly enjoyed that :)

anyway, i had really hoped to spend more time with my host family, and that didn't work out---but it's okay. i have next year to look forward to! i can't wait to celebrate the holidays with my friends at midd and family in new hampshire and new york city.

:)

the national pastime

drinking.

japanese people love to drink. being drunk at 4pm is nothing unusual (certainly not common, but not unusual). there's something called nomihodai in japan ~ all you can drink. it can sound like a horrible idea, but i don't think there's anything wrong with it if one knows where to draw the line. since drinking is an inherent part of socializing in this country, i wonder how japan compares to the united states in terms of alcohol abuse.

i guess this post will be more about my observations than anything else. things i see:

1. drunkenness in the afternoon. a few months ago, i was surprised to see drunken people on the subway when i was going home from classes. however, my friend informed me that it's not unusual. and i've seen this a couple more times since.
2. vomit on the streets. also not unusual late at night. i suppose it's cleaned up before morning.
3. people who often look nauseous in or around bars.
4. vending machines that sell alcohol ~ present everywhere.
5. middle-aged men with severe asian glows before it's even 8pm. 
6. salarymen passed out on the train. they usually take up two or three seats because their bodies are sprawled out. 

so what does this have to do with me? for one, i've had more alcohol in japan these last few months than i've had in my entire life. but with the exception of new year's eve, i've been responsible in terms of knowing my limits and when to stop. since the drinking age in japan is twenty, all my friends and i are legal. since this isn't the case in the united states, one would assume that we'd "take advantage" and drink as much as we can. for me anyway, this is far from the truth. it's nothing special anymore. being able to buy alcohol whenever we want has simply become a way of life. (furthermore, a night out at the bar can become quite costly.) 

if teenagers were to be taught how to drink responsibly, and if the drinking age were lowered to 18 in the united states, i wonder if there would be fewer deaths/incidents amongst college students relating to alcohol abuse... 

new year's eve!

i suppose i'll start off with the events of new year's eve. in a nutshell, ben came over to my house because his laptop unexpectedly died the night before. while he was building a new one online, i finished the rest of my "top-to-bottom" new year's cleaning. we stayed at the house and hung out until dinnertime. i wanted to take him to osaka osho, an inexpensive and extremely delicious (japanese) chinese restaurant in katsura, but it was closed. so we went to shijo, where he wanted to take me to gyoza no osho, another inexpensive and supposedly yummy chinese restaurant, but that was closed too. *surprise surprise* it was new year's eve, after all. we walked around for a while and finally decided on a matsuya-like restaurant.

then we went to starbucks (sanjo) to meet becca, eric, and lauren before going to the hub. ben and i had gone to lawson's just before, but i was already glowing from the can of 5% peach cocktail. (he finished a stronger, larger can of beer looong before i did >_<) when we got to the hub, it was surprisingly relatively empty. we found coat hooks on the wall and managed to get a table. i waited a while before i got a peach cooler, followed by a tarantula (yummy, but 30 proof), some of becca's beer, some of ben's mojito, and then too much champagne (ben generously got the table a bottle). there's a reason for listing what i had to drink last night---i'll get to that in another post.

the rest of the night involved: immature 16, 17-year olds at the next table over who couldn't dress themselves from australia, brutal/hard-to-watch boxing matches on tv, party poppers at the end of the countdown, followed by four kisses to open the new year, warding off older guys who wanted to do karaoke,  and meeting ben's girlfriend rika for the first time. 

i got home around 2:30am ~ i wasn't feeling too well, but a lot better than about an hour earlier. elliot texted me, hoping that i could make it to the pig & whistle, another british pub. i would've loved to go, but i was already at kawaramachi eki (and was in no condition to wander back to sanjo by myself in dress heels). i texted danielle earlier too, but she was nowhere close to where i was. with the exception of mia (and elliot), i haven't hung out with the other midd kids in a while. the other day, my host mom asked me what they had been up to, and i couldn't give her an answer. *red flag* why didn't i know? even if we were all going in different directions, i felt like i should've at least had an idea of what everyone had been doing-- but i didn't. 

i'll say this much, "it shouldn't be this hard."