As of Monday, I have officially been in Japan for five months.  Time really has flown by. (Didn't I just graduate? Wasn't I just agonizing over my thesis? Ahhhhh!)  I still have a little over four months to go, though I'm now reaching the "I don't think I'd mind going home" point.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it here and am having a blast ( Read more... )

Second week back to class was much easier than the first.  I'm finally getting back in to my school schedule, and I've gotten used to the new classes.  One of the reasons for this is that I purchased a real electronic dictionary!  I've been using the English/Japanese dictionary on my DS for several years, but I reached the point where it wasn't ( Read more... )

This week began the start of the third quarter of IUC.  After all the fun and excitement of break, it was really hard to get back into the swing of things.  Part of the hard transition was recovering my whirlwind of a last week.  Last week's adventures:

Monday- Went out with my friend Aya and her sister, Chiaki, to Korea Town in Tokyo.  Had a ( Read more... )

Stealing from madhatterpan

( I enjoy animated films that aren't Japanese too )

Winter break was definitely needed this year.  I don't think I realized how ordinary every day had become here.  I really like IUC, but my day-to-day life developed into go to school, come home, make dinner, do homework.  At times I forgot that "oh wait, I'm in a foreign country and am missing an unbelievable opportunity by just sitting around in ( Read more... )

Only four days into 2011, and I'm already having a blast with this year.  Granted, it's probably because I'm on winter break, in Japan, and it hasn't hit me that I start school again in less than two weeks, but it works.

New Year's Eve itself was a blast.  I hardly ever do anything on New Year's Eve except go out for dinner with my family.  But ( Read more... )

Stealing this idea from terrorcandy - I went through my journal and picked a song to represent each month of the last year, making a music mix for everyone.

( Track List and Download Link )

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it ( Read more... )

Winter Break is from December 23rd to January 16th, and since I'm not going home for the break, I'm beginning plotting what exactly I'll be doing.  The current plans:

December 25th: "Orphan Christmas" Party- a bunch of IUC students who are here over break without family/significant others will be getting together. No idea what this will entail, but ( Read more... )

Can I just say how weird it is to go on facebook and see all the statuses about finals when I'm not taking any?  Our semester ends next Wednesday, but we don't have big final exams like I did back at Bryn Mawr.  We have a presentation tomorrow that my class has been working on for a couple weeks, and a couple exams next week, but it's no where as ( Read more... )