Happy New Year あけましておめでとう

It's already midday on New Years Day and I guess I'm technically on day 3.

Day 1 was good. Jazmin picked me up at the airport, thankfully and brought me to Ayumi's house, which is only 8 stops away from her house. We had dinner, which I mentioned previously, chatted, and then i passed out at 11 in a nice warm bed.

Day 2 was windy. But I had no idea, because I spent most of it sitting in my room trying to finish my paper which is due on Jan 1st, EST, which means I have til like Jan 2 at noon here, thankfully, cause I really need it. I now have about half of it done. I spoke with Ayumi's grandparents, again, super cute, and had tea and then headed off to Jazmin's for dinner. Dinner was delicious, as always, and everyone's English is pretty good. I only wish I knew as much Japanese as they know English. Epic fail America.

New Years Eve isn't really a big deal here, but we headed out, met up with people from Jazmin's school and chatted. Everyone has been soooo nice. They say they're shy, but I just think they're nice. We rode trains, and arrived at Tokyo Tower for the celebration. Jazmin spent a good amount of time teaching me how to countdown from 10 and repetetively told me how to say "Happy New Year!" The actual countdown was not that flashy, the Tokyo tower was lit up and rather pretty, but the best part was right at new years. There people holding a couple hundred balloons, clear, plastic ones, that all got released at midnight. I really wish I had a picture. But as they were all set free in front of me with a Buddhist temple in the background, I was completely awestruck. For about 2 seconds. And then the wind blew them in different directions and they scattered and were still pretty, but not quite on the same level.

Afterwards, we left the area and went back to where we all met up to go drinking. For 2100 yen you can have all you can drink, which apparently is cheap, but i really should have had more to drink. I think the best part of the night was my extensive use of Spanish. Yes, you read correctly, Spanish. Unfortunately my brain doesn't seem to have different language settings, but rather, first language or foreign language, and in most cases foreign language for me means Spanish. So as I had more to drink I spoke more Spanish with Jazmin and other people on the program who knew some from high school or were learning it here in Japan. So cute. I did learn some Japanese, don't worry, and I try to pick up more everyday. Drinking was fun, we stayed out til 430 ish, talking, and looking at cute people and then eventually headed back to Jazmin's where I spent the night.

Day 3. New Years Day is a much bigger deal here. Instead of Christmas cards, people send New Years Day postcards, which magically all arrive on New Years Day. It's also a day to spend with family, which is where Ayumi and her family are right now as I update my blog and then continue to work on my paper.

But for the coming hours it's me and Chemistry journal articles before I can really enjoy this wonderful place (which is super bike friendly! more on that later)

End of the semester and hello vacation

It's a really nice feeling to be done with school for the semester. Oh wait, I have one more final to finish, but then it will be nice. I'm glad the semester is over. It totally killed me. Capstone is done, thankfully and I feel like a better student for having it done and much more ready for the prospect of grad school. Though it took up all my time, I'm really glad I did it and though I may not have been able to spend more time with people, I still made some great new friends, mainly in the co-op, and had great times. It's nice to know that even in my last year, I can still make friends with people, even though I'll be leaving soon.

On to more happy things though, vacation is upon me and I'm loving it. Though my stay in CA was brief, I got to see two of my favorite people plus an Obie friend I have missed. And I got to see like all my family. Then my mom freaked out about going to the Philippines and left the country and then I did too.

Japan! Seems to be a wonderful place so far. The plane ride was long, but I eventually got here and the Tokyo Narita airport (NRT) wasn't too crowded. And of course I got to add a new airport to my list! Since the airport is way out from the city (space issues) it did take forever to get to where I'm staying, but Jazmin was a saint and knew where we were going and it turns out I'm not too far from where her place is at.

I'm staying with a current Oberlin student, whose family is so cute and super nice. I've also decided to eat seafood while here, which makes things easier on people cooking for me and because a couple people would have killed me if I didn't. And so of course, my first meal here in Japan was make my own sushi, which was really quite delicious. If there's anything I miss the most about becoming vegetarian, it's seafood, and there really is nothing better than fresh seafood.

So I don't know like any japanese and people here don't know that much English, but I'm totally ready for the challenge and really excited. More updates to come as soon as I actually finish this paper and get out and explore.

Exhausted

I don't think I've ever been so exhausted in my life from just writing a paper. I'm now on day 5 of basically constant work on this capstone with breaks for eating, sleeping, going to class, and having meetings. And now I'm just tired.

I know I'm so close to being done, but not close enough. I'm losing sight of the end and could seriously use some lovin, maybe some hugs. Hugs are always nice.