[holder entry]

no worries. i have much more (than just superficial things) to say about the first half of my time in japan. however, it's now nearing 1am, so i think i'll head to bed. i'll collect my thoughts over the next few days and hopefully write an entry on the reflections before the clock strikes midnight on the last day of 2008.

-jean

ten days

...since my last entry.

i figured i'd have to make some time to update. it's nearly midnight, and it's been an exhausting week, so i'll do my best to be somewhat coherent.

first big news: my sister alice has been accepted to middlebury (early decision) for the class of 2013! the couple days leading up to december 13 were too full of anxiety and excitement--sooo glad it's done and over with. congratulations, alice! you've worked so hard ~ you deserve it!

second big news: leslie came to kyoto and stayed with me this week. it was great to finally see her again after four months :)  leslie, have fun in hokkaido and tokyo with your family! i'll miss you, but september will be here before we know it... can't wait!

not big news: three more "meetings" with starbucks guy since the last entry. the next time i have an opportunity to talk to him, i will. for real, this time.

now on to smaller updates...

#1 end of fall term class party with imao-sensei

￥10000 (about the equivalent of $100 USD)

this was really yummy, but it was also really difficult to eat.  

we called for reinforcements after a little while... 

not even half-way in, and most of us were about to give up.

#2 starbucks.

i'm still going. everyday. overkill? perhaps. 

why am i going so often? many reasons. 

for one, obviously, the coffee. 

two, i love the atmosphere (awesome for reading). 

three, it's a great place to meet up with friends. 

four, it's one of few places in kyoto where 

one can actually sit down and 

have conversation for hours on end. 

five, i come across (interesting) people 

that i normally wouldn't otherwise.

#3 finals week.

i have never been so relaxed around exam time.

there was no need to cram or study excessively.

i reviewed the material with some friends at starbucks

in between good conversation and just plain silliness :)

[elective grades aren't in yet, but i received an A for japanese]

#4 leslie!

mia and i were able to spend a lot of time with leslie

over the past few days. we did a ton of shopping and

ate delicious ramen. we also had yummy chinese food with

nestor and greg before they went to nagano for part of break.

grant also met us at starbucks for more catching up/reminiscing

over some good coffee before he had to head home to pack.

#5 awesome finds.

(the perfect) off-white wool coat on sale.

cute deep purple dress from zara.

new bag! similar style. different color.

beautiful handmade pouch with eiffel tower.

lots of inexpensive, but pretty jewelry.

<3

magical.

is what today has been.

....well, not in the cheesy sense. but it has been an amazing, amazing day.

it started off with cinnamon toast ^_^

then my last class of fall term let out 30 minutes early.

yummy lunch with good friends.

wandered around doshisha library.

starbucks. enough said :)

hung out there with friends until food time.

[oh, and starbucks guy happened to be there too. the third meeting, and i STILL couldn't say "hi"]

make-your-own okonomiyaki <-- DELICIOUS. explain more later.

"let's become beautiful" purikura XD

returned to starbucks and hung out some more.

walking home, i noticed the BEAUTIFUL full moon.

....and then i saw a shooting star.

soaked in the [hot] tub for a while.

came back to my room to find skype msgs from matt.

whs had a snow day, so alice was home to chat with me.

i really couldn't have asked for a better day ^_^

chicken x2

i saw the starbucks guy again.  i was on my way to get parfaits with my friends when we passed each other on the street.

next time [if there's a next time] i'll say hi.

i hope.

>_<

books :)

i love them.

i'm about to finish my fourth book in two weeks.  because of my extremely high productivity levels lately, i've had a lot more free time to read (for pleasure!)  i go to starbucks, satisfy my coffee addiction, finish homework, curl up on one of the couches and just turn pages for hours and hours. and then wander around a nearby five-story bookstore when i have even more free time.

sound wonderful? 

trust me, it is.

^_^

chicken.

not the food.

me.

=]

went to starbucks again after classes. finished a separate peace and got a lot of work done. silently played what felt like a waiting game for several hours... 

i should've just said hi.

>.<

a temporary band-aid

i've never been one for starbucks. 

coffee in general, definitely <3

but not starbucks.

yet, today marks three full months since i've been in japan, and i've been to starbucks over a dozen times already. it's not that i think starbucks coffee is the best thing that has ever graced the planet. it's just that home-y feeling of america that i get when i'm there. or maybe more specifically, the grille at middlebury. i'm sure being homesick has something to do with my recently frequent trips to this overpriced (especially in japan!) café, but more than that, i can unwind and productively do my homework and studying there.

i would've gladly extended the time i was there this afternoon (from four hours upward) if i didn't have to catch the hankyu home for dinner. after a series of events yesterday, i broke down crying in front of a couple of my akp friends. luckily, they lent me a shoulder and an ear until my stop at katsura. i took it easy for the rest of the night yesterday and looked forward to some coffee after class (today). i got a friend to go with me, but he headed home a little thereafter. (not a big fan of coffee. or starbucks, for that matter.) 

so i curled up on a big, comfy chair and read john knowles' a separate peace for the first time since freshman year of high school. (thanks for the lend, mia [...or rather, mia's younger brother] ^_^)  great book, but unfortunately, its content didn't really take my mind off of what i was trying to forget. in any case, being in a café atmosphere and enjoying a cup of caramel-flavored coffee over a good read did wonders for my spirit... at least for a little over four hours.

i hope i'm not conditioning myself to turn to starbucks every time i need a pick-me-up, but i've learned that i want little coffee shops and/or diners around whatever town i'll end up settling down in.

not much of an update :)

...."attractive" screenshot ^_^

just some thoughts...

...not really an update, i suppose.

after a relatively expensive day yesterday, i decided to stay in. i woke up late and found the house empty. my host mom had left a note for me on the kitchen table saying that she'd be out until 3pm or so. until then, i had watched a few episodes of the OC and caught up with a couple friends online. 

when my host mom came home, i was picking up my room... but one thing led to another, and i began to "REALLY" clean. fortunately or unfortunately, i found some things reminding me of high school, japanese summer school, and the first month of being in japan.

i realized that many things that i may have been unhappy about stems from issues more deeply rooted in just the "weird ways in which japan works". and i wish that i had tied up loose ends before leaving the country, but i didn't. so now, i have to figure out what it exactly it is that i need to do to "fix" a few things in my life. i won't have the answers before this month is over, let alone before break ends this weekend.

but as always, i'll がんばります。

it's all that i can do.

fall break!

....has begun! ^_^

i've been terrible about keeping this blog updated for a while now. 

BUT, i've been keeping a separate journal so my misadventures don't go unwritten :)

sometime this week, i think i'll post a video blog ~ since i can talk a lot faster than i can type (which i'm sure you all know what i'm talking about...lol)

i'm doing extremely well now. it just took me forever to figure out that there's nothing i can do about the way the japanese go about things sometimes. most of the time, it's practical. and when it's not, i just want to scream in frustration. 

...but i can't. because it's not middlebury. and i can't do random "crazy" things like that.

(the closest my friends and i have gotten to screaming "randomly" is when we saw the election results come in on the computers in the akp lounge. we went out, bought drinks, and raised a toast to obama in the middle of the street ^_^)

oh midd... how i miss you <3

i didn't vote either.

i just read a friend's post about not voting in the 2008 election. i could literally copy and paste her entire post, and that would sum up perfectly how i feel.

i wish i had worked harder to make sure i got my absentee ballot.

i wish i could've been a part of making history.

i wish i could tell future generations that my first vote was for obama.

i have very few regrets in life, and not voting in this election has become one of my bigger ones. can i reason why i didn't care enough to secure my absentee ballot? i'm not sure. like some americans, i had lost hope in our country. for a period of time, i seriously considered living elsewhere in the world after graduation because i didn't see reason to stay. i disagreed with decisions that our government was making. i became frustrated, and i guess i just didn't want to care anymore. maybe i was "certain" that others would vote for obama, and my vote wouldn't have "mattered". i don't know.

three weeks worth of posts are missing. during this period in october, i was not in a very good place mentally. japan was driving me up a wall with some of its strange habits and customs ~ culture shock, i suppose. (maybe it's a matter of "getting used to it". but one thing i doubt i'd ever get used to is seeing girls pile on fifty layers of mascara in a restaurant or moving subway car. this morning, i saw a woman walk onto the hankyu with a mirror held up to her face. she couldn't wait five seconds until she was actually on the train?!) anyway, the point i'm trying to make is that being here in japan has made me realize that i do love america. and i'm ready to see america change for the better. but by the time i had come to realize this, it had already become late october.

it's about time i fly again ^_^

for whatever reason, i decided to practice some cheer stunts (on a wobble board) after stretching at renaissance tonight.

then a trainer comes up to me, and i thought i was about to be scolded for doing strange things on the wobble board in the stretching area. instead, she started to say something about cheer, but then she saw the middlebury cheerleading shirt i was wearing. やっぱり (after all/as it turns out/"i thought so"), she says.

long story short, she's on a cheerleading squad based in osaka and wants me to join ^_^  practices are saturdays and sundays from 11am to 5, 6pm.  if it's both days every weekend, then i might have to reconsider, but it's much better than what doshisha's squad requires.

i had contacted the doshisha cheer angels in september, but all hope was lost when i found out that practices were three weekdays (at three hours each day) and once or twice on the weekend (at six or seven hours) PLUS, having to cheering for doshisha's sports teams at their games. furthermore, practices are held at tanabe campus, about an hour an a half (one way) from imadegawa campus, where i have my classes. it's also expensive for me to commute there because my 定期 (commuting passes) take me nowhere near tanabe.

so until tonight, i thought joining  a cheer squad in japan was pretty much 無理 (impossible)

^_^

my crazy sports club ^_^

another quick post.  

because it seems like it's all i can handle nowadays :) 

and i'll get to "updating" those three missing weeks of october soon.....

so i happily going along on the elliptical when a trainer approaches me---the same one who i had orientation "g" with.  i already knew what she was going to say.  one, i should do more weight-training. i've been avoiding that part of the gym because i didn't do orientation "i" yet. two, there was a period of time that i had been absent. i got sick, and homework had piled up. 

at renaissance, everyone has a file---but it's hardly private. at the end of each session, one puts the file in a separate place for review (and gets filed away by a trainer afterward for easy finding the next time one goes)  so they know everything i do on any given day.  members also take their blood pressure+heart rate and note their weight before and after each session. maybe that's how it's also done in the US, but it seems like this sports club is intensely attentive. they greet you several different times when you arrive and say お疲れ様でした at least twice on separate occasions when you leave; they are always floating around, and meet with you at regular intervals to discuss your progress, goals, etc.

it gets a little suffocating at times, but i think i'll get used to it. i just dislike that feeling of guilt if i don't do a full workout---and knowing that the trainers know i didn't. for instance, i had one really busy night in which i was lucky i was even able to go at all. i only spent thirty minutes on the elliptical ~ so that day's column was practically empty >.<  and it shows... oh well, not my problem :P

a feast every night

quick post about my host mother's delicious food.

i've been meaning to write an entry about this for quite some time now. anyway, it's delicious. and she cooks A LOT of it.

tonight's dinner consisted of:

• a bowl of rice
• a giant (and i mean, HUGE) bowl of ramen
• veggie tempura
• little dumpling-like things with tofu <--they were really good
• chicken wings made with amazing spices
• korokke

i'll never starve so long as i'm living with the nakamura family ^_^

it's been a while... i know...

it's been three weeks since my last post, and i have much to update on.

....however, i won't be doing that tonight XD

things should calm down soon, and i hope to write A LOT on friday.

how am i doing? i've been a lot better.

v_v

i <3 precor ellipticals

renaissance sports club.

day one: 

• left house around 8:30pm. during the 3-minute walk, i was hoping that i wouldn't do something embarrassing, but i really wasn't nervous since the gym is like my second home
• gave my membership card to the trainer at the front desk and started to head upstairs to the locker room. unfortunately, i didn't know that in exchange for the membership card, one gets another card that serves as a key to a locker... so she chased me halfway up the stairs
• got to the locker room. took shoes off before stepping onto the tatami-like part of the floor. then i couldn't figure out how to work the locker with the card, so i asked the two naked older women next to me
• after they helped me, i got changed freely. japan does that to you. nudity in public areas... not an issue for me anymore-- it's become relatively normal.
• went to the machines/equipment part of the sports club. found my file, took a clipboard/pen, and headed straight for the elliptical. didn't know where to put my record, so i just placed it on the floor beside the machine. apparently, the file goes into a little box in front of the elliptical, which i had failed to see. luckily, i was told by a familiar face. it was a trainer who had i done orientation with a week earlier
• became THRILLED when i realized the elliptical was precor. [ same company that midd uses ] most everything was in japanese, but i understood what i needed to understand :)
• not having brought water with me, i stopped several times to drink from the fountain. the elliptical had reset all my workout stats the first time i took a break, so each time thereafter, it was on an interval so i could easily recalculate (and add on to) what i had already done.
• after burning about 850 calories, i figured it was a good place to stop. went to the stretching area, took a mat, set it down, and began cooling down.
• returned locker key card at front card and received membership card back. walked home while texting mia about the embarrassing moments ^_^

i forgot socks. yeah, pretty gross >_<  but i wasn't about to let that be an excuse to leave and return to my comfort zone that is my homestay house :)  my feet are okay for the most part. no blisters, thank goodness! but stretching barefoot was a little awkward XD

i also knocked off my mp3 player that was resting on the "magazine holder thing" TWICE [ or was it three times...? ] it made a lot of noise, and i had to step off the elliptical to retrieve it each time. now that was pretty embarrassing >_<

but aside from all the little mishaps, i'm happy i can finally get back to a regular exercise routine =]

ligers & tigons

i missed out on THREE weeks of total insanity. okay, not really. but i moved up and absolutely loved japanese class today. it was SO much fun, and i finally felt "challenged". class wasn't difficult by any means, but i definitely welcomed the faster pace. we already covered blood type personalities in summer school, but i don't mind doing it again because it's an interesting topic :)

someone led us off-topic before we actually got to the reading... we wound up talking about the difference between ligers and tigons...

^_^

[almost] flutternutter!

mama set out a new kind of bread/roll for breakfast this morning. i took a bite into it, and it seemed like there was a marshmallow-type filling ~ and since i usually spread peanut butter on whatever bread there is, i [almost] had a fluffernutter today :)

that really made my morning. i was wondering just yesterday if fluff was sold in japan...

^_^

déjà vu

once again, i find myself stuck between levels. at the advice of prof. lofgren and my friends, i finally approached my homeroom teacher about how easy class was for me. and after [a ton] of talking with various sensei, they decided that i should move up for a week and see how it is. i don't think it'll be very difficult at all, but the problem is, we're already three weeks in. at least when i moved up in summer school, it was only the second day of classes. 

why do i keep finding myself in these kinds of situations? >_<

bring it on.

[coming soon ~ blog entry on the BEST friday night ever ]

ups & downs

sorry it's a little blurry v_v

*i apologize in advance for the fairly negative entry, but i didn't want to sugarcoat things, or leave out the bad for the sake of keeping up appearances.*

so i don't know what it was about this morning that just made me not in the best of moods... i have reading/writing class on wednesdays (as opposed to language/grammar the rest of the week), and i usually look forward to the change of pace. but as class went on, i found myself less and less willing to participate. my mind had begun to preoccupy itself with something i've worked hard to shelter myself from thinking about. [yes, it's about a guy. and no, chances are, it's not who you're thinking of. or maybe it is, lol ^_^] 

so then class ended, and we received our graded second-draft essays back. i got an A+!  [i really owe a lot to summer school for my writing. out of reading, speaking, listening, etc, i think it's my most improved area by far.] so yay, good grade. but good grade = good mood? ...no, not necessarily. i killed an hour and a half in the akp lounge waiting for lunch with prof. lofgren ~ talking to people, checking email, using nestor as a pillow as i mindlessly watched this japanese film about food, sex, and etiquette... 

anyway, i went out to lunch to café bazaar with resident director/professor lofgren and four other akp students (nestor, elliot, althea, and david) to talk about life in japan so far. [and problems with classes, homestays, etc] it was a good time, for the most part. prof. lofgren told us to just "suck it up"-- in regards to some minor complaints about classes. i was slightly annoyed by that, but i just brushed it off. and then not surprisingly, the whole midd "clique" thing came up.

don't even get me started. i was nice about it earlier, but now i'm just... *grumble* we hang out because we enjoy each other's company. and other people hang out with the people they like too. so what's the problem? well we all happen to be middlebury students, and somehow, that makes it "wrong". we're by no means an exclusive group, and i'm really sick and tired of constantly explaining that to people. furthermore, i always make an effort to acknowledge everyone in the room, not just my close friends. [at least althea notices that >_<] but then someone mentions that the "midd kids" are not exactly on her friends' good sides. normally, i would care. that would bother me. but guess what? it doesn't. why? because if they're that quick to judge us without even trying to get to know us, then i'm not so sure i'd want to be friends with them anyway.

...so on to the ups of today. besides the job well done on the essay, lunch was on akp today :)  i had the "taco rice", which consisted of a fried egg on top of some ground beef with rice on a bed of shredded cheese, lettuce, and diced tomatoes. [tako in japanese means octopus, so that brought some initial confusion lol] i thought it was pretty delicious ^_^ throughout the meal, there were humorous anecdotes from everyone-- and they made me smile, so that's good :)  after lunch, we went back to the lounge, where i saw mia and danielle :)  and they made me smile too ^_^  i adore them sooo much! around 3pm, my friends all left for their landscape gardens class--which i'm not in--so i headed home.  

a crazy, hyper dachshund greeted me at the door. his name is leo. he's about seven years old and belongs to my host sister mari. leo stays with us when her family gets really busy and isn't home much. [leo has separation anxiety?] this little dog reminds me a lot of lei ~ my crazy, hyper black lab back in new hampshire ^_^

playing with lulu and leo definitely lifted my spirits, and i'm expecting to be in a much better mood once i get that sports club membership tonight :)