Christmas, Christmas Time is Here~

Ah, Christmas. That beautiful time of year when we remember the birth of Jesus, spend time with family, admire the glimmering lights, carol with friends, cuddle under the kotatsu, write dozens of nengajyo, and eat a bucket of KFC. Wait, what? Okay, so Christmas in Japan is a skosh* different from America. I got a bit miffed when I first started to notice the differences between the two Christmases, but it isn’t such a big problem now, more like a nation-wide game of I SPY. “Can you see the difference? I spy with my little eye something slightly off”. Well, maybe not like that, but something that makes it more Japanese.

Some things that has been fun is seeing all the decorations. Everything is ornate and well organized, matched, and arranged. I love looking at all the displays in stores and along the street. Kichijoji has a display called "Underground Christmas" in which these little robot moles act out various holiday scenes in their burrows. I thought it was adorable! Even my dorm mates got into the decorating spirit. They put up a Christmas tree in the lobby. However, according to my friend Jerry, a Christmas tree expert of the 4^th degree, the branches have too many gaps, the tinsel only is on the top half of the tree, and someone started putting unrelated ornaments it which ruined the whole feel. Personally, the childish way the tree was put together made it rather cute, like the tree that my sister and I would have in our bedroom that only we were allowed to decorate. What is more, I came home today to find that one of the first floor boys had bought (if he made these, I will be floored) tiny, delicate Christmas cookies and hung them in the tree for people to take.

Another first floor boy made a gingerbread house that looks exactly, EXACTLY, like our dorm, complete with pod sections and the security entrance. He even had a window for each of the rooms and a little garden of sugar candies on the second floor terrace! The piece is uncanny. Working off of his inspiration, some second floor girls also made a little gingerbread and left it in our kitchen for the other girls to see.For example, my dorm wanted to join in the campus caroling session. Fine, no problem, I love a little holiday spirit. But when it came time to pick the carols, they choose Seasons of Love from Rent the Musical and Ookina Furui Dokei (The Old Grandfather’s Clock) by Hirai Ken. Both are fine, lovely songs, but neither are Christmas carols nor speak to the message, feeling, or season Christmas. Okay, fine, no problem, if this is what they want, and they are willing to practice, we shouldn’t fight it, after all it is their country and their Christmas, so just calm down now.

Another example, Christmas here isn’t a family holiday, it is a couples/friends holiday. Sort of like a winter Valentine’s Day. Kichijoji (my favorite little city), has a giant lights display outside the station, but it is of a huge heart and ribbons for Christmas Couples. Having a Christmas date is seen as the perfect way to spend the day and is what all the Japanese consider ideal. If you don’t have a date for Christmas, you are said to be having a “Lonely Christmas”, sort of like the Black Heart’s Club. Um, what about the entire reason for the holiday in the first place? Or, less religious than that, what happened to the season of giving and “going home for the holidays”? Once again, we just need to calm down, do things their way, not everyone is Christian and you shouldn’t force ideologies on other people. But it makes me wonder; how did all of this get lost in translation? How did Western Christmas get so altered while appearing almost identical at first glance?

At the beginning of the month, we were having a bit of a wet season, but that all cleared up soon enough and by the 23^rd, things were even starting to warm up! How strange is this! A Christmas without snow? I haven’t experienced that since I lived in Kansas. We did have a minor earthquake at 2 am the other day, got hit by a tsunami that afternoon (barely felt the effects of it here, though), missed out on the lunar eclipse due to cloud cover from the tsunami, but did get a clear, full moon on Wednesday night. So the last few days have been a tumult of natural phenomenon. Tis the season!

Christmas itself is going to be very exciting for me, though! I’ll be spending it with my best friend Gina from Witt who is also studying in Japan right now. We are spending Christmas together in Tokyo (going to see the new Tron movie and see a ska concert on Christmas Day), and then head off to trek across the western part of the island! I’m so excited I can’t sleep, which is good because I still need to pack and do laundry and write more blogs before I’m on hiatus for about 2 weeks, but bad because I’ll be super drowsy (maybe) when I see her tomorrow. All will end well, though – it always does with Gina.

To all of you back home (and to those who have just returned home for break), Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

*skosh comes from the Japanese word sukoshi (少し) meaning “small or little”, and is a prime example of gaijin Jingrish or Japanglish.

City Farms

What in name of Farmville has happened here?! Am I going crazy?! Seeing things?!

So, there are little farms in my town. I can get that. They are more like these little plots of land with an odd assortment of veggies and such grown by who-knows-who for who-knows-what. But they are cute, and our town is small-ish, so they aren’t so out of the ordinary. But I was riding my bike back from Kichijoji, a city which (I personally think) is rather large-ish in Japan (it is by Ohio standards, at least), and I’m riding, and I’m riding, and then I stop riding, because in the parking lot, I see a bird. But not a normal city bird, mind you. I saw a chicken; a live, clucking, walking chicken. Wait, no, there were three chickens. Two hens, one rooster, and a partridge in a pear tree~~ Haha, a little Christmas jest, that.

Apparently, and I didn’t stop to ask too many questions, but the person who owns the parking lot built a super-sketchy "chicken coop" next to the Pepsi and coffee machines and trained his birds to avoid cars (very important) and not to leave the area or go into the street (another useful trick since now no one can ask him, “Why did the chicken cross the..” Oh, you’ve heard that one? My bad). These chickens were rather flustered as I stared at their odd, fowl selves, but they never left their area of safety around the roost. One of them even scampered up to the top shelf to hide away. The others started running in circles which didn't help my confusion.

I just didn’t get it. I still don’t get it.

The Emperor's Birthday

I had such a productive day, it wasn't even funny! I woke up early, cooked some food, got some last minute shopping done, cleaned my room super-thoroughly (I mean broom AND vacuum, ladies and gentlemen), organized my pantry because I have so much food from home that I now have a legit pantry, and now I'm packing for my long-awaited, cross-country, pan-Japan, Giant Robot invasion with my partner in crime, Gina Gray! But as I was out and about, I couldn't help but feel that something was off. What could that something be? We go now to the field where correspondent Me tells Myself what I think. Don't mind the hat, by the way, it was falling off during the shoot. Camera shy, I guess. And the freeze frame? Priceless, as usual.

Soul Run's Disney Sea Videos

I'll admit right now that I'm not the world's most interesting narrator, so I'm sorry for all the repetition in the videos. The first clip is the entrance of Disney Sea all decorated for Christmas; you can hear me most of all, but my friends are chatting and aww-ing in the background, too. The second snippet is of Agrabah, my future home.

Classes Winter Term

When it comes to school and homework, I am soooo bored! I knew that college in Japan was easy, but this is almost pathetic. If it weren’t for the language problem, I’d have almost no work. This term, I’m taking Japanese Level 4, Thai Ethnology Studies, and the History of Japan in Asia in the 14^th-17^th centuries.

Japanese class is pretty cool, but they separated us into smaller groups and now it is all the Keyaki kids minus one: Ellie! They put her in the other class, so now we can’t all talk and practice together. We're watching Totoro, too! That is part of the class: watch and understand the movie Totoro in Japanese. Sounds good to me! Besides that, the Japanese teachers this term seem to be pretty interesting, and one of them is a former Wadaiko player from our club. Since visiting an English class at another nearby college, I've gotten a chance to see how hard teachers try, almost beg for class participation. It made me really pity language teachers, which is why I have been volunteering for more stuff during class this term. And I need the participation grade. And I need to improve my speaking. Okay, so there is a host of reasons and I'm not just doing it out of the ever-flowing kindness of my heart. We can't all be prefect.

As for history, it is pretty much the same course that I took last term with the exact same teacher. That professor complimented my final paper, too. He said, "I recently read a very well done paper on fashion in the 16th century which was able to incorporate images in the reference section of the..." That was my paper! So take that, academia! If it weren't for the two annoying groups of freshmen in that class, it would be pretty good, but these kids drag the professor off on random tangents for DAYS. He knows too much, so whenever they ask an unrelated question, he knows the answer and feels it is his duty as a teacher to tell them. Very sweet, but it takes away from the actual lesson! And they ask about basic, basic stuff! Just let the man lecture, then ask questions at the end!!! We actually had to say straight out that he hadn't spoken about the syllabus for 2 days, and the freshmen got really defensive about it. They should, it is their fault. Besides being a self-proclaimed History Otaku, our professor is also a huge Harry Potter fan, which makes me so happy. He even has the class divided into dormitories and periodically gives 10 points to Griffendor and goes off on all sorts of tangents. The thing about being a history professor is that he can act as a time-traveling-tour guide, “And now let’s jump to the 13^th century, but in order to better understand where this name came from, we should visit the 7^th century.”

Besides those two easy classes, I have an Ethnology class in Japanese….I might die…probably. Luckily, the teacher takes extreme pity on me, gives me extra readings in English, letting me do my presentations and reports in English. As long as I don’t fail, it should all be fine, but every now and then, I can’t stand it. This class is definitely not a class for people who care about their grades. But I was saved the other day! We had to interview these two Thai students for 1 hour and a half, but thankfully the students wanted to do it in English. Praise heavens!! I had spent the whole day in dread for that interview and was prepared to cry myself to sleep that night, but when I found that I knew more Japanese than the Thai kids, I nearly jumped out of my chair! This makes my life so much easier, there was no way I would have survived if it had been in Japanese. Hopefully I’ll get better as we go on, but…hahah, let’s be reasonable now.

The good thing about have very few classes is that I have more time for fun and random activities. Like what? Rakugo, practices, and traveling!!

Soul Run, the Basics

I know I just wrote about Soul Run going to Disney, but in reality, we don’t ever hang out. I used to see them three times a week and now we only meet up for dinner every few weeks or to go out. I miss practices! I miss scrambling from class to the gym back to class again! I miss exercising and dancing with everyone! I get the world’s smallest violin, right? Actually, I won’t be upset for much longer. We just had a Soul Run Bounenkai/Christmas Party at which they announced that we will begin practicing again soon! Apparently a really nice hotel has booked us as live entertainment for some big event and we need to get back into practice, reorganize our lines, and build up those leg muscles again. We did lose a lot of good members because they were only here for the first semester, but this time we won’t be starting from scratch, at least.

But this is a “basics” blog, so let me get the cultural lecture out of the way. I’ve done this speech so many times, and if I’ve already done it on here too, I’m sorry, but I’m sure someone will be reading it for the first time. “Soul Run” is a play on words; the group does a type of dance called Souran Bushi and it sounds a lot like Soul Run, so the name stuck. For Japanese, they translated the name directly (魂走) and call themselves the Running Souls. Kind of cool, kind of creepy, but it works. Souran Bushi is a traditional Japanese (Hodaiko?) fisherman’s dance that has been sped-up and reset to more modern-sounding music. Every group who performs Souran has their own version or style. There are certain parts in the song that are made for slight improve, and of course the number of people changes a lot of flare in the dance. For all my kids in FLA, we did Souran Bushi before, but I wanted to do the real thing here in Japan. It was such an experience and it really showed me how weak my stamina could be, but I soon got the hang of it.

Now that I know the real way to dance, I really want to start a group of my own at Witt. It would have a purpose: we can perform at the East Asian Festival during my senior year, I ‘d be teaching people about Japanese culture, and I would be able to do the dance again (hehe). But if it is under my control, the dancers are going to know their stuff! No slackers allowed! If we dance Souran Bushi, we go hard and fierce! Just saying. It is all still in the planning stages, but it is going to happen. But before then, we have to do the performance in February. Once more with the Running Souls, then I’m on my own in America. Dokkoisho!

Before I finish the post, I was able to find this video on facebook! It is of our final performance during the ICU Festival. The first one is us performing Souran Bushi and the second is the Para Para performance. The boys stage left are the Para Para Club and the kids on stage right are the Shorinji Kempo members. Soul Run is in front of the stage and I'm the one in dead center. Remember, I had dislocated (the relocated) my left knee a week before th performance and had been doing taiko all that week and weekend, too. But I think I kept pace pretty well. Hope you like it!

Disney Sea

WAAAHHH!!! This was beyond great!! I haven’t told you about this yet?! Why not?! Oh, that’s right. I take forever to blog. My bad. Now on with the show!

Going to Tokyo Disney Land and Sea are a Soul Run tradition. They always go to D. Land on the last Friday before finals, which is a given reading day, but who ever reads, right? Then they also go to D. Sea on the next Friday which is at the end of finals. I really, really, really wanted to go with the group, not so much that I love Disney Land/Sea (I’ve never been), or that I was such a Disney kid growing up (which there is no denying – animated musicals all day? Sounds like a party to me!), but I love the Soul Run members and it is always better when you can go with a group of friends. Trust me, I’m a loner for most activities, but an outing is so much better when you can turn to someone that you know and say, “Wasn’t that cool?” or“Dude, we so have to try that!” Going in a group also get you a good discount! The first Friday, as it turned out, I couldn’t go; I had been writing a paper since 2 pm the day before and pulled an all-nighter, but still

wasn’t finished by 7:30 am, when they were all meeting at the train station. I finished the paper by 11, by the way, but I was so bitter about it that I stopped caring (side note, I got an A).

Luckily, not as many people were planning on going to the Disney Sea trip, so I just switched my plans for that day instead. Why not? It was break and I wasn’t doing anything that day.

I didn’t know the differences then, but apparently Disney Sea is better for young adults anyway. The themes are all around water, but very few are water rides. This makes sense because I don’t think that the Japanese like to get wet and then walk around like that all day (they are kind of like cats – always trying to stay clean and neat) and we went during late fall, so the weather was too cold for a water park adventure anyway.

Instead, they had an Italian-Mediterranean-Greek area (each one blurred into the next, pretty much), Atlantis, Atlantica (from the Little

Mermaid), Agraba on the coast, a Boston Harbor area, a lost island place, and even a European coastal town. Everything there was perfectly done and meticulously decorated and detailed. It was too perfect, like being in a drawn world, and maybe it was the weather or my friends, but I loved every-single inch of it. Being there made me seriously consider applying for a part-time job as one of the actors there. I could so do Mary Poppins or Belle, why not?

There were some pretty memorable part to the day: a trio of foreigners dressed as chefs played trash cans, pots, and pans while talking and singing in Japanese, I got to go on some awesome rides, we all met Aladdin and Eric (such sweethearts, and I think that they are actually brothers), watched the Japanese

belly dancers, eat some strawberry flavored popcorn, and take a lot of pictures (I’m so much of a shutterbug, but at Disney Sea, that’s okay). Back to the Aladdin and Eric guys: Eric was wicked tall and had such a pretty face, none of the girls could get over how young and lovely he was. He smiled, acted, spoke, and stood just like a Disney

character, and as we were leaving he said, “If you guys see Ariel in the Mermaid Lagoon, send her my love, okay?” Isn’t that just so charming and princely!? You don’t get it, he was too good. Hardly had we gotten over that shock, then we went to Agraba and met Aladdin. “Hey doesn’t he look familiar?” “Um, yeah, he looks like Aladdin. Duh!” “No, no, no. Its something else. Doesn’t he kinda look like a shorter version of Eric?” “….O….M…G…They’re totally brothers!!”

Here is our theory: Either Eric or Aladdin came to Japan to pursue his career as an international model because the American agencies wouldn’t use him saying that he looked too young and feminine. Maybe he started out with commercials or ads, but soon he was scouted by Tokyo Disney and hired into their full-time staff. He was doing so well, that he called his brother, who was now looking for som

ething to do, and hooked him up with the other prince job. Disney was overwhelmed, of course, because now they had two young, handsome princes – one tall and pale, the other shorter and willing to get a fake tan – and they all lived happily ever after. The End. Or something like that. I think. Anyway, not only was it Tokyo Disney, but it was Christmas themed Tokyo Disney.

Like I said before, the Japanese don’t have a concept of Thanksgiving (because it is an American holiday), so as soon as possible, they throw up the Christmas lights, decorate everything with snowflakes and call it good. One of the little decorations that we saw everywhere was Pablo the Penguin. Okay, here is where we tell the die-hard fans from the casual observer. As every true Disney kid knows, Pablo the Penguin premiered in movie where Donald Duck learns about birds from all over the world, most notably those from South America (and then he makes two friends from Brazil and Mexico, thereby making the Three Caballeros! Arriba!). But here is the thing, besides the half-Hungarian-half-Mexican girl and me, NOBODY knew who Pablo was. Many of them also didn’t know that Goofy had a son named Max! But there was a character that can only be found in Tokyo Disney called Duffy; he's a light brown teddy bear from who-knows-where, but the Japanese love him. His girlfriend is call Constance Mae, or something like that. :S

It was a fantastic time and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’ll try to be as detailed I can on the pictures, and a little video, too.

All You Can Hit!

(Before we start things off, I just want to say that to tell this I had to really reach back into my memory banks. I’ve really got to start writing events as they happen, instead of going back a few weeks or so every time. I’ll be doing that a lot for the next few posts. But anyways!)

In late November during fall break, I had that chance to attend Wadaiko’s 20^th Anniversary All You Can Hit Party! Literally, that was what they called it: an uchihoudai (打ち放題). Besides being another gathering of Wadaiko players past and present, people made more of an attempt to come and celebrate ICU Wadaiko’s 20^th Anniversary. The current members had quite a task of setting up the event, contacting everyone, and preparing for the day’s activities, but luckily the retired members made sure to help out and we all ended up having a great time. As usual, the OYRangers were dazed and confused throughout much of the day, so we ended up doing odd-jobs, served food, or sat around and tried to stay out of the way. Wadaiko used up the whole basket ball court that day; half of it was covered in blankets for people to sit on and watch, the other half was covered in taikos. I mean it. Absolutely covered in taiko drums! We had every, single drum that was owned by the school and our club out on the floor. Large, small, often used, hardly touched – it didn’t matter.

The first hour or so was spent setting up, signing in, and waiting for everyone to arrive. 10 am marked the start of the party with sensei leading us in a group warm-up exercises. Then the real fun started! On a board was written all the major songs that Wadaiko has played in the past 10 years. No system was given, we just waited for the leader of the event to name a song and everyone who knew it, performed it, liked it, or wanted to try it could go up grab a drum and have a go! Some of these songs were written for 3 to 4 people, but it didn’t matter. We set up every drum we could find for each piece so that anyone who wanted to had a chance to play. There was an army of kodaikos, a plethora of chappas, a swarm of odaikos, you get the idea. Everyone else got to sit and watch the massive group play. I had only been there for one term, so I only knew that songs that they had played for the ICU Festival concert. There were so many songs that I had never heard of before. It was really strange to see the upperclassmen join the retired members to play pieces that I didn’t recognize at all. There were songs that used flutes, different sized/styled drums, and some that had bells, symbols, and gongs! People weren’t trying to have a real performance, just play Wadaiko’s pieces. You see, all but two of the club’s songs are composed by its members. There are two traditional Japanese songs that we play, but everything else is an original, which makes each piece very precious to the club.

Besides just other members, some people brought their children, too. Most of them were under 6 and they were really curious about the drums and what their parents were doing. They would stand next to the taikos as their moms or dads play and were amazed that their parents knew how to do all of these songs/dances. On little girl insisted on sitting in her mother’s lap while she played the kodaiko and another boy hovered around sensei as she performed an odaiko and chime solo. We brought out a giant, fluffy, stuffed pig for them to cuddle with and we had little Wadaikos for them to hit. Anything to keep them interested. Derek's parents even came all the way from California and got a chance to play the drums with him. Afterwards, he took them out around town, but they left us dried mango strips from Trader Joe's! What a treat!

I got to perform all the pieces that I really likes, and even played on some drums that I know the club would never allow me to perform on. That’s what the kick out parties and All You Can Hit sessions are for, after all: experimentation, exploration, and just hitting a drum in a loud room!! Afterwards, we went out to an All You Can Drink place, but I went along for the company and the food. It all turned out to be a great day. I’m really lucky to have come to ICU this year and met the Wadaiko players. They’ve helped me make some of the greatest memories here.

Going to the Park

Woah, this is actually reaching back into my memory bank about two weeks. Bear with me folks, I’ll probably be a little hazy on the details. Here we go:

The OYRangers wanted to spend some time together, but Tokyo doesn’t have many places where people can just “hangout”. No, there seriously isn’t. You have restaurants, houses, businesses, temples, and ramenyas, but no one spends extended periods of time there. There is Starbucks, but they are so small, you can’t fit many people at the same table or be there for the whole night. In order to have some open space to ourselves, we decided to do some exploring and go to a park instead. Someone had heard that there was a lovely park in a nearby city, but once we actually got to the city and looked at the local maps, we noticed that the park was only as big as someone’s front yard. We were hoping for something a tad more spacious or at least big enough for a picnic. So we walked ALL THE WAY to Shinjuku (see photo album) where we heard that there was a national park. We spent more time on trains and on foot than actually at the park. Not “national park” like Yosemite, but more like "national garden" I guess. It had lots of organized garden areas, chrysanthemum beds, a tea house, lots of lakes and fish. Now, in theory, we went to the park to study together, but although we did open up our textbooks, not much studying got done. Instead we ate a lot of junk food, talked, and had a great time. CJ even had some fun.

The good times came afterwards, though. Typical Japan, the park closed at around 5, so we were left with nowhere to go. So we decided to head back to Kichijoji to one of the boy’s houses for dinner. After stoping at Tokyo Hands® in Shinjuku (see another post) we all hoped the train to Derek’s. On the train, we were debating the fastest way to get to Kichi, when a Japanese salaryman jumped into our conversations with some helpful advice. He spoke surprisingly good English, actually. He asked where we were from, if we liked Japan, and what we thought of the people. After, he told us what planes to use and what types of bus tickets to buy if we wanted to go up to Hokaido. Our group had a great time talking to him, and Jorren (our Dutch Ranger) was shocked that a Tokyo man would be so friendly to foreigners he just met on a train. The reason that guy was so nice? Maybe it is because he’s not from Tokyo at all, but from Hiroshima, just like Yuki-chan/sensei. People from the western part of Japan are supposed to be louder, funnier, and friendlier than people from the eastern shore.

That was a little off topic. Anyway, we bought a bunch of food from the local grocery store, went to Derek’s house and cooked up a storm! The only problem was that he lives in one of the Sakura Houses. Sakura House is a company that rents rooms to foreigners who are planning on staying in Japan short term and don’t want to invest in a long-term lease. There was a Korean girl who had moved in the week before and, even though she was in her pajamas and in the middle of making her own dinner, was kind enough to let us use both the stove burners, so we gave her a heaping plate of food and talked with her for the rest of the night. We had to communicate in Japanese (which went….well, I guess) since no one knew Korean and she didn’t know English. Well, that’s a lie. Jorren actually did know how to count to 10 in Korean from his years in Tae Kwon Do and Sarah could go as far as 20 because…she just…knows…that’s not the point! We ended up becoming her best friends and even gave us all adjectives: Derek and Jorren were “interesting/funny”, Sarah was “cute”, and I was “pretty”. She was such a sweetheart and asked us to come back to talk with her sometime. Which we never did. Um, maybe we can still make it back before Derek moves out? Ugh! Now I feel like I’ve wasted time here.

I'll just have to fb everybody to get over to the Sakura House soon for a final cooking party with Derek's housemate.

By the way, the food was great. Cheap and quickly made, but great. In the end, I had to get back on the 11 pm train so that I could get back to my place in time for good-‘old curfew. Great story, right? Don’t worry, I’ll come up with something better.

Time

I guess that this marks the beginning of my fourth month in Japan. September, October, November: three months done with and most of the California students leaving soon. It is strange to think that many of my new friends and the now familiar faces are going to be gone. Their time with here is done already. Come to think of it, Keith only had three months here, too. How could they be down with so quickly? I was speaking with Liane the other day and she gave me some advice that I should have been following all this time. Because I came here knowing that I would be staying all year, whenever something was scheduled to happen, I didn’t make such a strong effort to attend. Sure I went to activities or events that sounded fun or exciting, but if I missed one outing, I told myself that there was always next time. But for some exchange students like Liane, there would be no next time. She told me that she did not sleep much here. If she did, then she’d miss out on hanging out with friends, going somewhere new, or doing something she can never do again. The other day, I didn’t climb Mt. Takao because I told myself that I could do it in the spring. I also missed out on dinner with my friends because they told me that it would be too late. I didn’t fight them on that subject, but just went home because I thought that we could always just go out another day. No big deal. But maybe it is a big deal. I might be too busy in the spring. Something might happen between now and then that makes it impossible for me to go. That night could have been the last night for me to go out with everyone. Likewise, just staying home in my dorm with the other students could be an important event. By going to bed early or heading up to my room before everyone else, I thought that I was being responsible and getting proper rest. But look at Liane, she didn’t sleep for fear of missing out on the moment and still she had regrets. What if I stay for a year and keep living the way I’m living? Will I have more regrets than her? I still have time, and she is already gone. I should stop holding myself away from everyone when they are close to me now. Later, when I have no way of being with them, I will wish that I had another day, another evening, or another moment to make them smile or share a drink. This may sound like I am talking about death instead of leaving Japan. Maybe I’ll come back, but no one could even guarantee that I’d come here the first time. Who can say that I will come back just because I plan on it?

In retrospect, I have done so much already (like Wadaiko, the OYRangers, teaching English to the high schoolers, and making friends - a difficult task for me), and my Japanese is better than when I first came. I would definitely not say my time has been wasted, but did I miss out on too much by trying to be practical? Should I take more chances, get more involved, go more places, not worry so much about money? Not go crazy, but not be as scared about if something is feasible or entirely rational. It makes some sense. I should live like next week isn’t coming, like I’m leaving at the end of the term, or like I actually won’t be able to come back to Japan again. This means that I won’t be on facebook or skype as often, I’m afraid. I’ll be there by appointment only to help keep me from being so dependent on home.

I’m sorry to have such a downer of a blog entry, everyone, but this has been on my mind for a while. Maybe it was the unhealthy amount of sugar recently that left my mind in a candy-coma. Maybe it was all the cheesy Japanese dramas and music videos that have me feeling a little depressed. Maybe it is because I've been stuck nearly alone in my dorm for 2 weeks! But I digress; speaking about not wasting time, I’ll be sure to post pictures and info about Disney, the Taiko after-party, traveling to Kobe with Gina, and other adventures on here for you to see.

p.s. People came back to the dorm today, so now there are actually people to talk to again. I was starting to spend all my time in the Yearbook club room, but now I can be social in my own dorm again. Finally!