one day at a time

i left the house without a clear idea of where i wanted to go.
i ended up at the kamogawa (river).
sitting by the banks, i journaled for a long time.
unfortunately, i only had enough in me to write about heart matters.
i was too exhausted to begin thinking about everything else at that point.

i called alex after and invited her to hike through the senbon torii with me.
we met up at kyoto eki and arrived at fushimi inari after just two JR stops.
it was a great day for walking and hiking ^_^
the temperature had cooled down by later afternoon.

i didn't know alex too well at all,
and i figured a long walk/hike would be a good way to become better friends. we have a lot more in common than i realized,
and i guess there will be lots of opportunities next year to chill =]

i just realized that i hadn't taken any pictures at all.
oh well, the memory lives on in my mind XD
google image search "fushimi inari".
no combination of pictures will do its beauty justice,
but it's the next best thing =P

i called my host mom from the train platform,
asking if i could have dinner at home & then go to the river afterwards.
she said it was fine, just don't stay out too late.
then i got home.
and it was the most awkward dinner ever.
i don't want to go into the details.

long story short, i'm still sitting at home.
and won't be leaving the house tonight.
i wasn't forbidden from going,
but i might as well been =(

alice just left for school.
friends in america are still sleeping.
friends in japan are at the river.
wonderful.

going to bed at 10pm.

someone set me free from this country.......

fukui <3

going to fukui with mia for the second half of spring break was one of the best experiences i've ever had in japan =)

i don't have the energy to write the long post those four days warrant, so i'll be even more lazy and just echo mia for now XD
http://miamonnier.blogspot.com/2009/03/fukui.html

i'll get my pictures up soon, but mia's pictures are better anyway =]
http://picasaweb.google.com/mgnm9195/HoyaHoya#

ahhhhh!! >_<

okay, so the title of this blog post isn't quite accurate for what's about to follow, but that's how i'm feeling (as of this moment). i've never felt more "manic-depressive" than in the time i've spent in japan so far. i'm either really happy or desperately wanting to get the hell out. it'd be nice to just be content/okay most of the time... too much to ask maybe? probably.

anyway, i've had A LOT of fun in the past several days with my friends, but i haven't been good about updating this week. i'll get around to blogging after i get back from fukui (NW of kyoto... i think) ~ for reaaals. no joke. i know i say "i'll update later" often, but spring break has been amazing so far && i want to make sure it gets "documented" somewhere outside my (imperfect) memory ^_^

in the meantime, here are some random pictures that will mean nothing....for now :)

adventures with ashley

because i've been up since 5am, and because i don't feel like writing much right now, i'm going to pull one of my in a nutshell's.

in a nutshell:
sunday. met up in saiin. starbucks. hankyu back to katsura. took a walk to katsura bridge. decided to keep walking. saw a lot of kyoto. found ourselves back in saiin over an hour (almost two?) later. took the hankyu back to katsura again. stole wireless internet from my own house from outside the gate at 10pm.

monday. imadegawa. ate lunch leisurely. watched how to lose a guy in 10 days. mos burger. ashley's forgotten purse. different saiin starbucks where i "managed" to get onto a wireless network. stayed there until its midnight closing.

so this post doesn't tell anyone much about anything. but at least it means something to me---so that maybe one day i'll come back to this and elaborate. [let's be honest, probably not. lololol]

what can i say?

^_^

i'm really happy. japanese class is going as well as it's going to be.
electives are still pretty awesome. i LOVE ecology class :)

my friends are the best i could ever ask for.
they make life fun and interesting every day.

skyping with alice & matt is a great way to start my day.
....even if it means i'm only half awake at first :D

i'm not in a "relationship". and nor do i want to be in one right now,
but i've found something i won't let go of too easily <3

two months, one week. so close, and not so far.
i'll be going home soon ~ and that makes me appreciate japan much more.

=)

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

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.

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

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 ^_^

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)

"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 ^_^

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 is 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 of 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.

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."

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 ^_^