Empty nest

Since right before finals, there was a bird that built a nest near the elevator on the 4th-floor of the apartment building I've been living in. I also live on the 4th floor, so I go past that nest several times a day. I watched it go from just the mother bird with her eggs, to all the little chicks always sticking their weird-looking little heads up looking for food. Today, all the little birds left. My last roommate also left. Almost everyone from IES has returned to America, with the exception of me and two or three other people. We leave on Tuesday. Somehow, the timing of the birds seems fairly fitting.

Well, I guess it's really over

Almost everyone has left. I'm celebrating my birthday in Japan today, so as to avoid having a party the night before I leave on a 13-hour flight. I started the morning off by frying up some yakisoba for breakfast. For the record, frying stuff in oil while shirtless is not the most intelligent thing one could do. I've mostly just been killing time this week, as I've kinda been in a funk since Sunday. At this point, I am totally ready to go back to MN. I have basically no discretionary income left, so there is very little that I can do here, and I need to start saving up money to be able to travel and visit various people. Tonight, planning on getting together with a few people and having pizza and then maybe going to a nomihoudai or something. My, what an exciting life I lead, right?

The Sayonara Party

Last night was the sayonara party. The semester is officially over. It was a very interesting day. I started out by showing up for my last class of the semester dressed as Jack Sparrow. Throughout the early part of the day, there were a great many Japanese folks taking pictures of me and whatnot. Then I rushed home (kinda weird that I'll be leaving 'home' forever so soon) to straighten my hair, change into my 'pimp' outfit for the sayonara party, and grab my sword, dogi, and hakama for the iai demo I did with my roommate during the party. After the party, a bunch of us went to the nearby beach to chill. Things got very interesting, and I am very dense. The party last night ended for me around 6AM this morning. It was fantastic. Now I need to help one of the roommies clean up, as he's moving out tomorrow and for some reason the IES Housing Director, also known as The Spawn of Satan, thinks that that means we should have the whole apartment spotless by today. Bleh. See you folks in like 10 days or so.

Plans for my glorious return

I finally bought my return ticket. I'll be getting back to MN with my roommate on the 22nd of July, so I get to spend my birthday in Japan this year (although most of my friends will no longer be here by then). Not really sure what else to say, other than that the large numbers of final papers I'll have to write in the next couple weeks are going to suck alot. Looking forward to free pizza and a movie tomorrow night, to make up for the large amount of crap I'll have to do this week. Also, I officially have no more free weekends for the rest of the semester. Bleh. Guess I'll see all you folks in MN sometime in late July or early August or something.

久しぶり！(it's been a while!)

Hey, just realized that it's been over a month since I last posted, and I just got back from Okinawa, so now seemed like as good a time as any to finally make another post.
The last month has been really busy. Golden Week was a nice break from the daily grind of classes, though I didn't really do all that much. It would've been nice if the break came a bit later in the semester, when I really needed it, but oh well. Several of the classes are still kind of a drag, particularly the one on Japan's international trade relations, but there's not much that can be done about that at this point. Working on coming up with plans to get together with Rennis and Brett in Akita for a weekend of iai, not sure if I'll be able to swing it or not though.
Okinawa was great. I wish we'd been able to spend more than just 4 days there. One unfortunate thing was that IES didn't really give us much free time during the day, so although the hotel we stayed at had a private beach, we didn't get to spend much time there. I also wasn't able to visit any Okinawan karate dojo, so I guess that means I have to go back sometime!
It's also just really starting to hit me that the semester ends in another 6 weeks or so. I've really enjoyed my time here in Japan. Obviously there were bad times, but the good times definitely outweighed the bad. It's still very sad, though. After the next 6 weeks, I probably won't see most of the friends I've made again. Even those who are going back to America at the same time I am are going to various different places, so it'll be difficult to meet up again. Even if we did manage to, it wouldn't be the same anymore. Like everything, all we have in the end are the memories we keep with us. Nothing else can ever stay with us forever.

Post-Pesach Post

Survived Pesach (barely). Last night, had lots of pizza and then played LAN games with the roommates. It was fun. Just started Golden Week, a.k.a. Spring Break. I'm kinda bummed that I didn't plan ahead and therefore won't really be able to travel much, but so it goes. Also, I'm gonna need to go to Harajuku sometime in the near future. Yesterday, one of my friends saw a t-shirt that I really oughta get, because it sums up my personal opinion quite well. It says "Eat shit, Nazi fuckers!" and has a crossed-out swastika on it. That's the type of thing you only see on display in the streets in Japan, and it is glorious. Perhaps I'll get a fedora with a skull-and-crossbones in rhinestones on it, too. I can find those in Harajuku, as well, after all.

Still up and kickin

Well, it's been a while. My apologies to my one regular reader (if you do in fact exist). It's been a fun, annoying, tiring couple of weeks. Fun in that I've been spending alot of time with some good friends. Annoying in that there seems to be a constant stream of boring but time-consuming assignments and readings coming my way due to classes. Tiring due to the combination of the two. Looks like at some point, I'll be spending a full weekend in Akita with Rennis doing lots of iai. That'll be cool, though it'll cost me about $120 in transportation. Also, "Golden Week" is rapidly approaching. That means a couple of weeks without classes, which will be nice, but unfortunately I didn't plan ahead, so I don't think I'll be able to do much traveling.
I'm finding that I don't enjoy Pesach any more in Japan than I do in the States. In fact, I enjoy it significantly less. All I seem to be able to eat are stir-fried veggies and cheese omelettes. It's getting old fast. On the plus side, my roommate from last semester (who is a ridiculously good cook) came over last night and made some tasty eggplant and cheese stuff... made sure not to use any grain products so I could eat it. Unfortunately, there were like 8 people and therefore none of us got as much of the delicious dinner as we would've liked.
Still dealing with a complicated situation; hopefully I'll be able to resolve it soon, because it's driving me nuts. It seems like every time I'm about to resolve it, though, something else comes up. Oh well, such is life, I suppose.