not too late :)

from thursday, february 26



....i forgot to post ^_^

things i don't want to forget

i love:
- the way the sun shines through the massive windows in my room
- how comfortable my bed is

...to be continued.

downhill

it's the first of march.
there's no question about it now.
my time in japan will quickly come to an end.
3 days of classes, trip to hot spring resorts, week of classes, spring break
....and that will take me close to the end of march :(

there's still so much i want to do, so much to see.

on top of that, i have things that i have to do.
there's a lot of research to be done, and i can only hope that i'll use my time wisely. i've been wavering back and forth about committing to a senior thesis. it won't be easy. but if it's not difficult, it's not worth doing. (in most cases, anyway)

plan for today:
clean my room (while listening to the beatles ^_^)
a couple hours at the gym
skype with alice
study for ecology midterm (tomorrow)
....organize my life? lol

decisions!

so maybe i'm getting a little ahead of myself,
but room draw & fall term registration are coming up!
:)

i'm hoping for a suite with friends in laforce.
that was easy.

but classes are a little trickier........

fall
JAPN 475 - advanced readings in japanese
CHNS 301 - advanced chinese
PHIL 206 - contemporary moral issues
GEOG 211 - the global economy ?

winter
JAPN 700 - thesis ?

spring
JAPN 700 - thesis ?
ECON 150 - intro to macroeconomics ?
PSYC 225 - child development ?
FREN 203 - intensive intermediate french ?

to graduate with high honors in japanese studies:
A on thesis & 3.75 GPA

current GPA within major: 3.83
i can afford a B+ this term in japanese and JAPN 475 next year if i get As in religion and ecology...

study abroadって

it's been a full six months since i've arrived in japan.

i've wanted to write this post for a while now.
but it has always seemed daunting, an impossible task.

"my thoughts on this study abroad experience"
"what i want this year to mean", "what has it for me meant so far", etc

where do i even begin?

the easiest: academics.
i'm disappointed with my relatively flat rate of progress. i wanted to get exponentially better at japanese, but that didn't happen. i suppose a lot of that was under my control. the worst part is, when motivation is at nearly zero, it's incredibly difficult to push yourself forward. i can't say that i've learned nothing from my japanese classes, but (here we go again...) compared to middlebury, the pace is just sooo slow. akp isn't middlebury. i've accepted that in late september, but it doesn't make it any easier.

writing: a lot better
speaking: down from the summer
listening: better
reading: about the same?

fall term electives: japanese language in popular media, japanese animation
there was potential for these classes to be great, but they wound up being just okay.

spring term electives: japanese religion, conservation & ecology of japan
i love both classes. minus a few people.
but they're not enough to ruin the classes :)

harder: personal growth, friendship, love&relationships

i'll tackle those later on
^_^

surprise!!!

in a nutshell:
we went out for (japanese) mexican food in osaka for hayato's birthday last night ~ it was 大成功 (huge success) ^_^

everyone met at the restaurant before nestor brought hayato (blindfolded!) there. he was thoroughly surprised---mission accomplished :)

the food disappeared way too quickly. i ordered the vegetarian burrito combo ~ sooo yummy :)

then we went to a "park" and surprised hayato yet again with a delicious chocolate cake. we took a ton of silly (and a couple serious) pictures, all the while getting stared at by passersby.

random things:
- apparently, putting your contact lens in your mouth until you can find some solution is a good idea? haven't heard of it before. [edit: i googled this. maybe not such a good idea afterall XD]
- there was no soap in the restroom at umeda station.
- el pancho (the mexican restaurant) is on the 8th floor, but the elevator only holds 4 or 5 people. taking the stairs is a bad idea. even though the staircase exists past the 5th floor, you can only go that far.
- there was a japanese guy singing english songs (such as the superman theme and enrique igleisias's hero) while playing his guitar in the restaurant.
- i'm bad at "being a man".
- it's a wonder how japanese girls can make the "poof" on their heads SO BIG. we failed epicly at "being japanese".
- no plates = spooning the cake.
- mashi's HUGE 失敗 (failure) ~ we wanted a big group picture, so mashi was supposed to ask these two japanese girls to take one for us. instead, he thought we wanted a picture with them. so now we have a group pic with two random girls and no mashi because HE took the picture >_<

we have no idea who the two japanese girls are >_<
(center front)

"be japanese girls"

"be a man"

"girly men"

copying elliot because we couldn't come up with a pose

....and this is what it looked like XD

who am i??

things for friday:
- kanji quiz
- listening comprehension hw
- speech (about 5 minutes) in japanese
- akp research grant proposal

thursday night:
- didn't study for quiz
- listening comp. hw done
- 30 seconds of speech written
- no progress on proposal

- didn't go to gym. sports bras were all in wash or still damp :(
- decided to nap at 11:30pm
- woke up at 5:30am the next morning when matt called me on skype

friday morning:
- talked to matt for a couple hours before deciding to finish speech
- didn't prepare slideshow of pictures i wanted to show during presentation
- studied for quiz on hankyu
- practiced speech (from my macbook! >_<) on subway
- late to class by two minutes = no time to print speech
- finished quiz before the last person, so i didn't delay class. *whew*
- but not coming in early = vocab used in speech not written on blackboard = minor delay *fail*

the speech went fine. it could've been a lot better, but i did my best. (and plus, it can ALWAYS be better. there's no use being hard on myself ^_^)

friday afternoon:
- religion class. (to make up the class that got canceled last week)
- back to the akp lounge to work on grant proposal
- skyped with matt XD
- proposal due at 5pm ~ it got turned in at 4:55pm

since last year, i've never been this bad at meeting deadlines >_<
akp's making me soft. can't wait to get back to midd's rigorous pace.
like mia said, i probably wouldn't be happy unless i were buried up to my neck in work XD

egrets!

today was a brilliant day :)
it was POURING all morning [read: miserable weather], but my heart was bursting inside with joy. i'm not sure why, but i was all smiles on the train this morning. it was packed with people too---but i remember thinking about buddhism, and how everything is in a "constant" state of impermanence. the gross humidity, unwanted body contact, etc. ~ all of it will eventually pass. [as will the intense happiness i was feeling---but as long as i live in the moment, that doesn't even matter =)]

despite going into reading class not having done the readings, and then sitting through an hour-long linguistics experiment listening to the same sixteen words over and over ~ i was in such high spirits ^_^

one, i got to talk to a really good friend [who better come to japan asap]
and two, bird watching during ecology class!
^_^

we walked down to demachiyanagi and bird-watched by the kamogawa [river]. i got crazy excited about the great and little egret for whatever reason. they are beautiful birds, and i fell in love with them. both are white with long necks and long black legs, but i love the distinctions between them. besides the obvious difference in size, the great egret has a yellow bill in winter (black bill in summer), and the little egret has a black bill that doesn't change color with the seasons. The other distinction that I went nuts over is that the little egret has yellow feet ~ SO adorable =D
[i can be such a nerd, lol]

i didn't rest much last night, and i'm feeling the effects of sleep-deprivation.
so.....nap time!
=)

NICKEL!

i am holding an actual nickel in my hand.

and it feels AMAZING.

i never thought i'd be this excited to see an american coin ^_^

just sharing :)

alice left this on my facebook wall earlier today && it just made me smile like crazy =D

Hey ho! miss you tooooo. thanks again for the president's day present; it's a great book so far =D & for the birthday gift too, he's keeping me warm at night [a stuffed elephant, for people who are reading this] =] me and mom were talking and we realized you're gonna be home in no time, can'tttttt waitttt!!! we love you! [me, mom, dad, + lei: we gave her a bath today and she's wearing her middlebury sweatshirt =D] ttyl.

i think i can, i think i can

i can sooo get my motivation back if i tried hard enough.

i can't really explain this sudden surge of inspiration, but i'm going to run with it and see where it takes me :)

through rose-tinted glasses

i'm not sure exactly who keeps up with my blog, but i have a feeling that at some point, something i have written may have been offensive or surprising (coming from me).

to me, this blog is like a personal journal that i'm sharing with everyone else. a lot of the time, i write to an "audience". but sometimes, i just need to write what i'm feeling (however negative) and express my frustrations the way i see it. i don't want to sugarcoat my blog or personality. i'm not as innocent as i may seem or might have been known to be. i have faults. afterall, i'm only human.

so please keep that in mind when there are occasional "frustration" words or stories about drunken absurdity, etc.

^_^

ash fork && the beatles bar

ash fork is an amazing american diner about twenty minutes away from campus.

after the mt. hiei trip, my friends and i ate DELICIOUS cheeseburgers. nothing about them was japanese, and it was WONDERFUL. i usually never eat cheeseburgers. i ate a cheeseburger. i hate mustard. i ate it with mustard anyway. i've never had coleslaw. i tried coleslaw. there was just something about the atmosphere of this restaurant that made me want to be as "american" as i could and forget about this crazy country.

there were eleven of us, so we were split up into two tables side by side. at one point, i looked over at the others and started crying. it felt like we were just a big group of friends hanging out in the states. but we weren't. and i wished that we were. yet despite all that, i was so thankful to have had a night like last night.

after ash fork, we went to a beatles bar. the service was sooo slow, and the waitress was rude. furthermore, the music was hardly loud enough. but i had such a great time with my friends that none of it mattered. i had two fruity drinks (peach liqueur + pineapple juice & a peachy fizz), so i was a happy camper ^_^

seriously though, f*ck japan sometimes.

mt. hiei

the trip to mt. hiei turned out a lot better than i had expected.

i avoided the people i didn't like as much as i could. separation into smaller groups did happen, but i made sure i was with my friends. there were several times when i missed out on what my professor was saying, but staying close to her helped a lot with that. the weather also took a turn for the better. it was even snowing a little on the mountain!
:)

i'll put up some pictures soon, but i already know they won't do much justice to the beauty of the landscapes and the antiquity of the temples.

we went up by cable car for part of the way and hiked everywhere else from there on out. i didn't take notes, so i don't know the names of the places and halls we visited. (i'll ask prof. ludvik for the details of the trip.)

there's no way i can easily explain what i saw and felt yesterday. many buddhist practices are simply mind-blowing. i can't even begin to imagine the pain, exhaustion, and trials that some monks put themselves through. (again, more details on this later.)

i realized a couple things from being on mt. hiei. i love the mountains. i like snow. the cold doesn't really bother me. i only had on a tank top layered with a long-sleeved shirt and a light hoodie all day. my point is, i felt freedom on that mountain. i was away from all the stupid girls on shijo dori, away from the suffocation of the host family system, and (somewhat) away from the smothering of akp. it's not necessarily japan that i dislike. if i had money to travel around the country, i'd be much happier. i'll come back to this later.

i'm still exhausted from last night.
=)

five more minutes...

it's 6am on a saturday morning.

if i were at midd, i'd be excited to start the day.
if i were at midd, i'd be getting ready to head to ross for breakfast.
if i were at midd, i'd be starting on the work for the upcoming week.

but no.

i'm trapped in japan with a nine-hour field trip to (not) look forward to.
going to mt. hiei ~ which would be awesome under normal circumstances

BUT
- it's a full class at 20 people (many of whom i do not care for)
- all hiking up the mountain (separation into smaller groups will happen)
- with our professor lecturing (probably won't hear much of anything)
- miserable weather (just peachy...)

maybe yesterday was just an "off" day.

i was so exhausted mentally from trying to enjoy japan that i couldn't even bring myself to go to the gym, my happy place (besides coffee shops) v_v

my test went fine as expected. all minor mistakes according to my teacher. when i went in to get my exam, 10% of the time was going over mistakes, and the rest of the time was spent explaining how i don't study anymore because i lack motivation >_< she said i wasn't the only who felt this way.

no surprise there.

edit:
yeah, it feels like my situation sucks.
but i have to remember it could be worse.

matt:
well a woman was attacked by a chimpanzee
and her face and both of her hands were ripped off
and partially eaten by it
her day sucks

a positive attitude goes a long way, i know that.
it's going to take a lot out of me to see today in a brighter light.
but i'll do it. i'll try my best.

some things

i've been meaning to make this list for quite some time now.

things i like about japan:

• food & drink ~ yatsuhashi (mia, thanks for the reminder!), veggie tempura, tonkatsu, kitsune soba, curry ramen, inarizushi, konbu onigiri, okonomiyaki, gyoza, peach & pineapple cocktails in a can from the konbini, curry pan, matcha softserve, nabe (tofu)
  
• onsen & sento! (hot springs and public bath)
• being able to go to temples & shrines whenever i want
• the amenities at my sports club
• radiating "fans" (awesome heater)
• "ethnic shops" for inexpensive jewelry
  
• knowing exactly when the next train will come
  
• convenience of "phone sex" ~ infrared communication between cell phones
  
• full-length bathroom stall doors

...i'll keep adding to this list, but why is it so difficult to make??
v_v

a sunnier outlook

i owe my (more) positive attitude about the last several months in japan to several people/places/things:

• matt && my friends who are also counting down the days
  
• tokyo and arashiyama
• the gym and my love of cheerleading

my friend matt from summer school has been endlessly supportive and helping me to find my motivation again. i've always been in awe of his study habits ~ i still don't think he understands just how much he inspires me :)

my friends who share in my "misery" (you know who you are ^_^) ~ thanks for all the "tollbooths" since october. it's always refreshing to just laugh about how crazy japan can be sometimes :) reminiscing about midd, language school, and everything else in our twenty years of life thus far..... good times <3

despite being a short three-day stay, tokyo with mia and danielle was a breath of fresh air.
day one: shopping (aka, backpacking) in harajuku until late evening.
day two: waseda area with our friend lauren from japanese language school, dinner in shibuya with mia's friend lenna, and lesbian bar with becca and her friend from wellesley in shinjuku
day three: the national diet library with mia to do research for my senior project/thesis

arashiyama on valentine's day. mia and i got away from the shijo/sanjo area and explored a little bit. destination: a little temple/nunnery called gio-ji [google it] we actually made it without getting lost! :)

i've been going to the sports club for about three hours a day ~ i thought i would probably get worn out from strenuous exercise day after day, but so far so good :) it's been a great way for me to relieve the restlessness i often feel here. i also get to work on stunts and becoming even more flexible for next year's cheerleading season. i can't wait =D

[i'll write more about tokyo and arashiyama when i upload the pictures ^_^]

blahhh

the reading/writing midterm was ridiculously easy. and "studying" wouldn't have helped much. (if at all)

anyway, i had over five hours after the test until the ecology field trip. i could've gotten some "work" done, but i didn't. instead, i hung out with my friends in the akp lounge until most of them headed off for (the earlier) translation class. at that point, a few of my other friends and i decided to study some birds because the ecology professor hinted that there might be a field quiz. (and there was one---on the eurasian tree sparrow and pale thrush.) even after we reviewed various species, there was still a lot of time to kill before 3pm came around.

...and i became incredibly restless >_<

thankfully, the field trip to gosho was relatively fun :)
well, any time i spend with mia, nestor, and david (abramovitz) is awesome <3

went home. dinner. gym. shower. (and no hw, haha)
pretty typical day.

j'adore le français

again, in a nutshell:
[perhaps i'll elaborate later... but maybe not lol]

the oral "exam" went fine. i could've done a lot better (as compared to language school), but i'm satisfied with how i did. ben (wesleyan) and becca (wellesley) are two of my favorite people in the program ~ our oral interviews were one right after the other, so we went out for coffee in shijo afterward.

then i met up with mia at shijo eki and walked to kyoto eki from there. we went to see the robert doisneau gallery at an art museum on the seventh floor of the station. i miss french sooo much. even before the gallery, i've often thought about picking it up again. so i might. senior year :)

for lunch, subway! it was one of the most delicious lunches i've had in a while. first time in nearly six months. since there was nowhere we could go to just sit and do some studying, we settled for the mister donut food court. and we sat there and didn't do much studying lol.

i walked thirty minutes back to shijo eki, where i get on the hankyu to go home. talked to matt (who should've been asleep!) on skype until dinner. put in three endorphin-filled hours at the sports club, came home, shower/ofuro, and now i'm finally finishing this post that i started hours ago XD

sooo much more to say than just this superficial stuff, but i'll forget entirely later on if i don't get something down now :)

oh yeah, placed request for sun tzu's the art of war at the doshisha library.

and i have my japanese reading/writing class midterm tomorrow at 9am.
haven't studied. i might *think* about it tomorrow after breakfast.
....what's the point? i wouldn't do much better with lots of studying anyway.
it won't be a piece of cake, but i don't imagine it being very difficult at all.
:P

not a promise

i can't promise that i'll update on everything that i said i would [soon].

not that i've been particularly "busy", but the fact that i haven't found time to blog kind of speaks to that effect. it hasn't been easy trying to find all the good things about japan. on the subway ride home yesterday, mia and i worked on making a list of the things we'll miss when we leave in 83 days. [but who's counting? hahaha]

i have an oral "interview" in an hour for which i have yet to 'prepare'. my speaking skills have gone so far down the drain, and i feel like there's little i can do about it. BUT i'm ready to try a hundred times harder to love the time that i have left here. it doesn't mean that i'm going to try to like what i've disliked up until now. it just means that i'm going to get creative and find.....

RUNNING LATE.
later!

a very happy valentine's day :)

i'm in a weird place mentally right now, so i won't get into the specifics of today yet.

in one sentence:
mia and i ventured to arashiyama to see gio-ji.

[maybe i'll blog after the gym tonight. and maybe update on tokyo too.]

my plan until dinner:
listen to jack johnson and do some journaling.

my life has changed pretty dramatically since high school.
i have much to think about, and much to sort out.
but i'm happy and wouldn't have anything any other way.
.....things are the way they are for a reason :)

the 100th post!

...and it's nothing special XD

the internet is down at my house for maintenance until tomorrow, so i'm on some other wireless network. anyway, i got home and freaked out when i couldn't get online v_v

i am wayyy too dependent on the internet.
not a good thing.

but i killed 3+ hours at the gym tonight :)
yay!
^_^

p.s. tomorrow and valentine's day are going to be absolute insanity.
just wait for it :)

national foundation day

heard of it before? no?
...neither have i.

but because it's a national holiday, the gym was closed today >_<

on another note, my heart is bursting with happiness :)
i love my friends so so so much.
and someone else is also making me smile more often ^_^

meanwhile, it's almost midnight.
and i have an essay to write.
...which was due last friday XD

the assignment ~ my suggestion for japanese people
oh dear.

les étoiles!

they were out tonight!
accompanied by a beautiful full moon ^_^

i arrived in kyoto around 6:30am from a three-day trip to tokyo.
stories later. mia + danielle ♥ !!!

i tried sleeping in for a few hours after a restless night on the bus,
but that failed miserably, so i...

• watched two episodes of the L word in bed <3
• talked to a certain someone ♥ && it turns out i really was just paranoid (mia & danielle ~ i know, i know. i should've listened to you from the start LOL)
• downloaded some movies ~ which i will watch on my ipod at the gym
• spent three hours working out ~ 1 hr 45 min of intense cardio, weight training, flexibility/cheer stuff... it was soooo nice ^_^
• took a hot shower followed by the even hotter ofuro

.....going to bed now. write more later.

p.s. just putting this out there ~ i will never stop thinking that japan is crazy. and i will never stop thinking about how i could be at midd or at home with family. BUT ~ there is no self-pitying or anything of that sort to be had. i'm not wishing my time in japan away (with which i've been blessed). sometimes i just wish that i could experience the next three months on fast forward and finally get to go home ^_^

twinkle twinkle little star

...how i wonder where you are

i haven't been able to see the stars in a very long time...
i look up at the sky every night walking home from katsura eki && i've been disappointed day after day recently.

but that's something minor, right?
i mean, i can't control the overcast skies or anything like that.

well take that, and add it to the exhaustive list of disappointments and frustrations throughout the day. by the time i make it back to my host family's house---

me: i'm a giant ball of negativity
will: i'd say you're a small ball of intense negativity

[dinner time. maybe i'll come back to this post with happy thoughts ^_^]

edit:
my host family is seriously awesome.
i'd be kicking and screaming to get out if it weren't for them <3

3 months, 7 days

.....but who's counting?

>_<