okay, so I am fail at blogging. I have been writing, just not here.

A lot has happened since the beginning of March. Mom's visit, a spectacular and rather bizzare breakdown of a friendship, a great beginning of a new one, cherry blossoms like crazy, another visit to see Adryn, my very first stageplay on my own (including some kabuki elements), a short but fun Golden Week excursion to Tokyo, and a fun filled sunny weekend in Hiroshima. Just to name a few. I have also learned to speak about the energy crisis and environmental concerns in Japanese. I know, cause I'm gonna use that a lot right? And now its almost over. Photobucket has been evil for a while now abot letting me upload pictures. But I'll give it another go. Exams are upon me. But my oral exam is out of the way so as long as I can get through the written Japanese exam I should be fine. After that its graduation ceremony, and then I've got some free time I hope to utilize to see the kanto people again. Then back to Osaka to move out, catch that last concert we bought tickets to AGES ago, and then back to Tokyo for that show Anna's friend has extra seats for, and my flight home. I'll be touching down in the good old USofA in the evening on June 2nd. Slightly crazy from the tme difference, but no worse for the wear.

I've honestly loved the whole time here. Not to say its been all easy, it most certainly hasn't. But I love Japan, from the slightly unnerving gaijin stares to the incredibly convient convience stores (you can seriously buy anything at Lawson). I think I've surprised myself at how much I've been able to do on my own. I have traveled, a lot, and several times completely on my lonesome. Despite nearly missing a few buses, and a few other near misses with disaster, its been pretty okay. Not bad for someone who has really never been anywhere seriously long-distance alone in her life. Within the state and trips with friends don't count. I am now amazingly familiar with the route between Tokyo and Osaka, by a few different means, and can navigate a train system with minimal flailing. The real test was when mom came, and with just the two of us I had to get us from place to place all on my own. Before that I had almost always had another person who could speak a little Japanese with me. But I really surprised myself.

And I really liked Hiroshima, its a pretty peaceful place (a no I'm not making a peace park pun here), it really was a relaxing sort of trip. I think I'm gonna miss Japan, more specificaly Kansai and even more specifically Hirakata a lot. Going back to Boone will be way different, we're pretty far from the city there. Being close to both Osaka and Kyoto has been a real blessing. Its been fun, and I've learned a lot. A lot about myself and my own culture surprisingly. I've never really had a chance to speak to other native english speakers, not from America, for a long period of time. And its amazing how much the same and how different we are.

I know everyone back home will be waiting to hear about how different Japan and the other exchange students were, but the fact is, what surprised me most was how much we did have in common (although can you imagine someone not knowing what a biscuit is? blasphemy).

Okay enough waxing poetic for now. I'll try to write again soon and talk about Hiroshima since it was the most recent.

So have I mentioned how fantastic Anna is? I'm SO jazzed about being able to go to Osaka concerts with someone. I mean, how much better are concerts when you have someone to sit with and make stupid commentary about it. Not to mention someone who understands my rampant fangirl. Not that any bands are being obliging and HAVING concerts in Osaka. But you know, we'll do the best we can with what we have. Uchi and Tsubasa are both coming so we'll see them. And I may still go to Tokyo to see Takki and visit Scribie if I can.

But its the simple things that make me happy really. And this is one of them.

So things have been pretty settled and uneventful here. My classes are going well and I am pleased to report that I got all my first choices as far as they go (Yey for lottery number 87, it was karma for number 333 last semester). I had my first KGU field trip ever this weekend for Intro the Japanese History. We went to Asuka. Its in the Nara prefecture and has a lot of REALLY old sites to see. Still no camera charger so no photos, but I'll gank some from Leslie later. We spent the whole morning and afternoon biking from site to site, which despite the cold was really nice and invigorating. Today I had a test and am now sitting in the computer room as a means of wasting time till I am not the only one not in class.

btw there turned out to be issues with the homestay that I wont go into, in any case I have moved back to the dorms, but will keep in contact with the family. I am now in a single room in dorm 3, next door to Ann and her new roommate Anna (who is really nice). I'm thinking I wanna buy a denchi jisho (electronic dictionary) both for class and for practical casual purposes. I wanna make sure I make the most of the TEN (yes count them ten) chapters of intermediate Japanese I will be learning this semester. Hopefully by the time I am done with undergrad I will be ready to sit some level of the JPLT (they tell me students at my level can be studying for level 3 in the spring if we like but we'll see). Once I get up to that level I'll feel good about resuming Chinese or taking up a different language. I think it will be my goal to be semi-trilingual once I finish grad school. Back to a day in the life of a KGU student.

Okay so now that I've got some free time I will continue blogging about winter break so I can be all caught up. So after the hell involved in getting to Scribe's apartment the time in Tokyo was very fun. We stayed up till all hours of the night talking and catching up. All in all it turned very silly and we were laughing about things that seem completely less, and yet not less at all, funny now. And we slept in pretty late the next day so we were still loitering around in our pajamas and trying to get ready for the day when Erin arrived, already cute and ready to party that evening. We were able to have a really fun time that afternoon the three of us, and had delicious pasta for dinner. Its really great when we can all hang out like that. So basically we ended up at a coffee shop waiting for Adryn to get there (since she hadn't been able to get off work earlier) taking silly pictures. But then Adryn finally came and it was time for the party to begin!

So Scribe knows this person who works at a bar in Roppongi who wanted us to come and hang out there for Christmas Eve. And so after a pit stop at Starbucks, which we were cutely kicked out of as it closed, we went there and spent the next 6 hours singing karaoke and drinking. Her friend very kindly gave us a discount and much fun was had by all. We took the first train home, which I'd never done before. On Christmas day its safe to say we slept in pretty late. Erin and I were up first and since we were on the air matress in the hall we ventured out for lunch. Eventually everyone got up and we walked around town a little bit, watched Erin's Christmas present Wall-e in a pile on the floor, took about a hundred purikura, and then headed back to the apartment Christmas cake in hand. We had a fun time eating it and generally messing around.

The next day Adryn was off the airport to pick up Darrin and Erin and I went back to her town of Kamisu to spend the weekend. Shes got a nice apartment too and a car which we used to drive around town shopping. Its a cute town (NO Train!?!) and Erin showed me everything that was worth seeing as this time of year. We also went to a very cool little concert that was both classical and rock. That took about two days. After that it was back to the Tokyo, where Scribe's apartment was getting a little tight. But we all managed to have a good time and we all acted as Scribe's house-elves.We took even more purikura

By then it was pretty much New Years and time for the NewS concert. Tokyo Dome was ENORMOUS, and as I got there I discovered that despite my irritation at paying twice the list price for tickets, it was worth it because I had semi-decent seats. Tokyo Dome is so big there really aren't many GOOD seats, but out of the two enormous layers of the arena, I was about half-way down the first floor. Not on the floor with the stage walkways, but still pretty close. Other than being alone and next to the most unethusiastic fangirl ever, we had a fantastic time. After that since we hadn't been able to get tickets for Summery, we went to Shibuya to get dinner and ring in the new year, which we did while eating amazing Japanese food. All the Japanese people in the resteraunt greatly enjoyed us counting down the last seconds to the new year. I called home and wished people there a happy new year, every though it was still noon for them. Then we walked around some in Shibuya observing the festivities and then decided to call it a night. Because of how tight packed it was we had taken turns sleeping in a manga cafe, which is pretty cheap and do-able if yor in the right place. The next day we were all zombies again and Adryn and Darrin left for Tochigi. Erin, Scribe, and I dinked around the rest of that day and had convi-food and doughnuts for dinner.

And then it was time for me to catch my plane home, which I did without too much train trouble this time. And that began to next chapter of my whirlwind vacation. Needless to say I spent a few days at home recovering from my cold which really hit my on the plane home, then a few days in Winston with Corey, and then my family went for its long awaited cruise which was a blast and such a nice break (the warm weather was fantastic too) and then I spent most of the next week in Boone visiting and doing some job hunting/feeling out. And then a few more days at home and it was time to come back.

Wow, I did a LOT. But it was really fun and totally worth it, I just think I'll stick to Kansai for a while. Pictures will come later when my camera charger comes in the mail.

So I really need to update about the holidays and maybe a quick run-through of my winter break. I'm moving into homestay today and am freaking out just a bit. I'm so nervous about whether or not it will work out and if it wouldn't have just been easier to stay in the dorms. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am somewhat dissapointed with my family placement. Its amazing how you try not to have expectations but you end up having them anyway. So I'm gonna try and blog about the holidays a bit to try and relax myself.

So as it turned out I was incredibly busy after Elizabeth moved out, with all the last minute practices we had before the shamisen concert. But it went okay, I looked great in my kimono and we even played alright. There was the one exception of when I dropped my music on a page turn, which was a small disaster but we managed to get it together again after the next koto solo. Eventually I'll have a video of that performance to post. After that Tomosuke and I went and found something for dinner and made an early night of it. I had sooo much to do the next day. I decided that it was best to carry only one package at a time to the post office because they were so heavy. So I went and mailed the lighter box first, I'll get to what made that such a huge mistake later. And then from there I proceeded straight on the train station to go into Osaka and get my reentry permit. The immigration bureau is pretty damn far and it took longer than I expected. I got back to the dorm with like zero time to clean before my inspection and the other box STILL not sent. Somehow I manage to clean the room in time, although I managed to have one of my plates be missing beyond finding and had to pay for it. And so then I grabbed the other box and my Tsubasa concert ticket and ran off again. But as it happened I was one minute late and the post office was closed. So I ditched the box in a coin locker at the station thinking I'd send it the next day. Finding the concert venue and getting there on time was relatively uneventful and although my seat was, lets face it less than spectacular, I had really enthusiatic Japanese fans next to me and all in all we had a good time. But I did loose my really awesome hat. So I went home and had someone let me in because I had already surrundered the keys.

The next morning it occured to me that I really should have called a taxi to take me to the station, but I managed with my one very large suticase and backpak. I got some help getting on the bus from a little old lady. This same lady conveyed to me as she was helping me out of the bus again that it was a holiday when I asked where the nearest post office was. I had completely forgotten the emperors birthday. This meant that the box that was still locked in the coin locker was unsendable till the next day. However, I had to get from Osaka to Tokyo that day. I had no choice but to take it with me. So what was quite possibly one of the worst days I have ever had began. I tried to balance the box on top of my suitcase while rolling it, this was the only way I could have managed, but that made the suitcase almost unbearably heavy, not to mention almost impossible to get up and down stairs. It also kept falling OFF the suitcase to my extreme frustration. As I was switching trains to get my my transfer on the Keihan line, I had still not quite got the knack of getting the suitcase on and off trains. As I struggled with the bag, my shoe gets caught in the gap between the platform and the train and falls off down onto the tracks. So there I was with this impossibly heavy burden in the train station and no shoe. I had to call for a station attendent to come and fish it out for me after the train had left. However I got to the Shinkansen without anything too horrible happening after that. But since it was a holiday, no ATMs, and I had long since established that I could not use my credit card for this purpose. Luckily, I had just barely enough (turns out our wussy student discount of 2,000 yen was what ended up allowing me to eat that day). So the Shinkansen wasn't so bad, a long stretch without having the haul nearly 100 pounds worth of stuff. However once I got to Tokyo I had two train transfers and a 15 minute walk to Scribe's apartment from the train station. Turns out thats more like 45 minute with the load I was dealing with. I got lucky that day, almost all the time someone would stop and help me while I was struggling up and down stairs. But that final walk to her apartment was hell, simply put. Tired, frustrated and muttering crazily to myself. I finally made it, found Scribe's key and let myself in. I had been going to explore Tokyo that day, but instead I did not stir from my spot at her kotatsu (a wonderful under table heating device for those who don't know its magic) except to get some delicious Indian food for dinner, until she got home from work. I also bought a pastry for us to share. And once she got home we had a great time catching up and laughing.

Well thats all of for now, its a long post and I've gotta get checked out of the dorm I suppose. Everyone wish me luck, and keep your fingers crossed that all my nerves and fears about the homestay turn out to be for naught. Because its really intimidating. I've never done anything like that before.