Wow, I am SO busy!! I've barely been at home at all lately, only to sleep. School has escalated in work again, and I'm working on my film for Media Arts like mad. Last night I did some practice shots, then helped out a friend do his practice shots, which took a total of 6 hours or so... before that I was doing still location shots too for 2 hours or so... it was a long day!

Today (Sunday) I woke up at 5:30 to get ready to help out another classmate with his real filming. I have to be in Shibuya by 8:30... wargh. Then I'll leave at 11 and go to Hanami (Cherry Blossom Viewing)! A ton of my friends are going, it should be really fun. The sakura are in full bloom right now! I've already seen the sakura in lots of places already and took lots of pictures, but there will be more!!

On Friday I went to Megurogawa (Meguro River) for lunch and a stroll under the trees.

Megurogawa
With Chizuru and Kyle!

Then on Saturday I went to the main area of Asakusa (with Sensouji and whatnot) and discovered sakura there too <3 Also some maiko! (Maiko is like a geisha, but not...) There weren't any right next to the huge temple, but there was next to the shrine, so the third one is Asakusa's shrine that is near the temple.

Nakamise
Maiko
Asakusa Shrine

This is a little memorial of some type about 5 minutes or less from my apartment. I pass it everyday to the station, the sakura here are really pretty!

Statue 1
Torii
Statue 2

Also, because my parents wanted to see how short/long my hair is now, here is a better picture of me than the sakura one above.

Myself!

It's actually still fairly long as I'm sure you can see, but it was MUCH longer. I cut off at LEAST 3 inches from it last time! Anyway, my hair is still pretty straight from my straight perm which is awesome. My bangs have grown out now and curl easily again, but the rest is basically okay. Yay to my hair. (It looks kind of messy in that picture though cause it was last night after I'd been out in the strong windy night filming movies!)

Anyhoo, I need to be off now to get ready. Parents, I'll email you sometime in the near future! Farewell all. <3

What's up Friends and Family (and others)?

I know you were all waiting for this.

What have I been doing?

...School.

Anyway! Here is... OLD NEWS:

- I quit my job. Too busy! BUSYBUSYBUSY SCHOOOOOL. This was in January sometime. But I racked up around $1000 working there over winter break, so there!

- I found an AWESOME yakiniku/buffet place near my apartment. It's amazing. 1600 yen (about $15) for all you can eat korean barbeque, fried chicken, fruits and veggies, rice, curry, ice cream, waffles, macaroni salad, kimchee, cake, ETC ETC! And also all you can drink soft drinks / tea! It's SO GREAT! We don't go often though cause we don't want to get fat or poor. :( But it's still awesome. There is also an Indian curry place that has the best curry and nan EVER that's super near my apartment. Cheese nan?! YES PLEASE!

- I've been going to live houses a little bit here and there. One of my friends introduced me to a band he's been following called Hachibana. They're just a local band of course, but I LOVE them!! Their music is good, just rock/pop stuff, but they are so so so entertaining and energetic on stage!! It's like just watching them perform makes people happy in seconds. Seriously, you could be having the worst day ever, go see their concert, and then your bad day will be forgotten. And they're friendly too, we talk to them a lot after their performances cause my friend is friends of them. Fun stuff! My friend is also a photographer, so he's taken lots of pictures of them. I'll share some sometime!

- Just for fun, here is a photo project I did for my Media Arts II class. The assignment was to take an object for your "theme", and then place it in situations where it shouldn't belong, or "humanize" it, that sort of thing. We were supposed to take three photographs, and make sure we were paying attention to lighting, framing, etc. My prof complimented me a lot for this one! I call it... "A Morning In The Life of Monokuro Boo" (Monokuro Boo is the cute piggie in the pictures.)


Vanity! (Make up? lol)


Awaiting toast!


Ready to face the day!

- It snowed a couple of times. Once was said to be the biggest snow fall in Tokyo in 3 years!! I have pictures for this too... but... later...? When I'm not lazy?

Newer News:

- Midterms are technically over, but the work isn't!! It's been the same level of work for 3 weeks straight now, so for me it was like 3 weeks of midterms even though they weren't ALL midterms... after tomorrow though (if I get my paper written on time... and my presentation done...) I should have LESS work for a bit. Yay.

- I cut a couple inches off my hair. Same style, just a little shorter. Still below the shoulders.

- I'm going to a semi-formal school party on Saturday for White Day (A Japanese holiday, it's like the sister holiday of Valentine's Day) and I... I... splurged a bit... (I'm sorry!) on a REALLY REALLY cute dress for it. It's SO cute. Really! Now I just need a date... Hm.

- I'm learning Mandarin Chinese! Seriously! And by seriously I don't mean in the slang way, I mean, that I am diligently studying Mandarin everyday now and am really really trying hard! I listen to ChinesePod.com's podcasts all the time, watch Taiwanese dramas with English subs, listen to music in Mandarin on my iPod during transit... (This is the way I learned Japanese, so it must work for other languages yeah?) Yes. My life is Chinese right now!! I WILL BE FLUENT IN A THIRD LANGUAGE!! I will!! Just you all wait! And I know lots of kids that are native speakers at school too so I'll harass them to help me out. It will be great. I'll take actual Chinese classes when I go to OSU. I'll take it every semester until I graudate! YES! (I'm excited. Please be excited for me. Ahahah) I plan to tackle Spanish after Chinese. I want to know 4 languages fluently before I'm 30!

- I am working hard in school, of course. This is not new news! But I have gotten a couple of sparkling A's lately, which is a SUPER ACHIEVEMENT for me, because all of my profs are known for grading difficultly. I'm working hard on my film for Media Arts II now, straightening out the plot and stuff. I feel like I've learned SO much about film this semester! I can talk about camera angles and framing and style and lighting and all kinds of stuff and actually know what I'm talking about! It's pretty cools. My film prof this semester is really helpful.

Well, that's all that comes to mind for now. But I'll try to do something picture-related here one of these days... like a post with just pictures sometime. I would do it now cause it's not like I mind at the moment (the weather is so great, it puts me in a good mood), but it's getting late and I have a paper to write and a presentation to work on! (...and a bath to take.) So, farewell for now. Hope you all enjoyed the update!

I exist! For reals! Just really really busy, stressed out and such. Plus I got sucked into the Tokyo time warp so for me time is flying. (The Tokyo time warp is... well... before you know it your day is gone!! We Tokyoites spend waaaay too much time on public transit.)

Anyhoo, just letting you guys know that I'll start posting again sometime after midterms. Which are this week and next week. Soooo maybe check back in a week or two? And there might be something. Just a heads up! I don't really want to close down the blog, it's just sometimes I'm in the mood sometimes I'm not. Busy busy, what can I say.

So, once again... check back in a week or two. Thanks for your support everyone.

Greetings all and once again sorry for taking so long to update! Well, it wasn't as long as last time, so maybe I'm getting better...?

Anyway, so my Christmas was rather good. I spent eve and day both with friends, going out to dinner, singing Christmas songs at karaoke, going for extended walks, eating doughnuts, cake, watching Christmas movies on youtube, ohh yeah. I felt that Christmas spirit. I got pretty home sick though. :( I miss you guys in America like crazy!!

As for new year's, it was rather uneventful, but I had a really good time! Me and 3 other friends bummed at a friend's apartment and played monopoly and uno (LOL!), and chatted about nonsense to bring in the new year. We had a mini count down (initiated by me, cause everyone else didn't seem to care too much as we were playing an intense game of monopoly, haha), and that was about it. Sometime after monopoly we somehow got into a political debate, which went on for numerous hours... before we knew it, it was 5am. (No, seriously.) So we walked back in the direction of Rebeca's apartment, ate some gyuudon for breakfast at the 24 hour Matsuya near by (?!?! gyuudon is a beef bowl... beef over rice, lol!!), cause it was the only place open.

Then I realized I left my cell phone back at the apartment, so I walked back there, and from there to my own apartment. The lucky part about that was, right as we were leaving Matsuya after eating, the sun was coming up!! I got to see the first sunrise of the year! It was a GORGEOUS morning, let me tell you. That walk back to my apartment alone was SO refreshing and I felt great. Good start to the new year for me!! It was quiet unlike usual, no cars, no people... just birds, and the sun rising in a pure blue sky and painting all the buildings in a pretty amber color... Ohhh yeah. It was special. Then I bought my favorite purin (flan) dessert from Sunkus and got home, and it was around 7am. AHAHAHA. All nighters for the win. I slept from about 7 or 8 until noon, and then commenced with my day like normal. It was fun.

Happy 2008 everyone!! Time certainly flies. At the end of February I'll have been here for a half a year, what happened?! Time!! Time, you flew!! And are flying! How is it 2008 already?! I'm half way done with college, that's... weird. Hm.

Oh I forgot to mention the bounenkai at work. It wasn't too eventful really, but I did get to see the manager and head chef's children!! (Um, separately though of course, because they're both men. One child per person, and the chef's wife came too, she was really nice.) Anyway, the kids were SO CUTE. A boy and a girl, both around 3 years old I think? The manager's daughter got sick and threw up once though and ended up sleeping the rest of the time. I also ate tenpura until I busted (sooo yummy), and discovered something amazing. No, really amazing.

Wait for it...

wait...

RACHEL CAN EAT SUSHI. Yes, you heard it straight from me. I can eat sushi. Some of it anyway. I can eat maguro (tuna), and I also ate buri (dunno english), and I think I can eat some other stuff... yup. I even ate the maguro ootoro sashimi. Ootoro is the most fatty and delicious and EXPENSIVE part of the maguro fish. And I ATE-D IT. Ohohoho. And it was pretty okay. I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it, but it was better than mediocre at least. Rachel can finally eat fishes!!

Well, fishes are okay... but shrimps, shellfishes, squids, and octopuses are... still not, and will probably never be okay. Shrimp may SOMEDAY be okay because I used to like it (when I was first in Miyagi I liked it okay), but the other three NEVERRR. I can't get over the texture. Fish, you see, was always just a taste problem, to me it LOOKED good, and there was no texture problem or anything... but I finally got used to the fish taste, so I can eat any fish now cooked, and some fish raw. AHAHAHAH. I'm so proud of myself!!

Okay so I got completely off topic there, but that was what I discovered at the bounenkai. Only a couple people were drinking fortuneately, everyone else just sat around eating and drinking green tea, it was nice. I stayed there for a while talking, then went home, and that was that. Not too exciting.

Ugh I found out something not cool though. I'm too fat to buy jeans here. I need to find a plus sized store (I'M NOT PLUS SIZED WHYYY?!), or something, because the biggest size at Uni Qlo doesn't even fit me and Uni Qlo is known for having more "American friendly sizes". I think they might have had some in the back or something, but I didn't bother to ask. That's where I bought my pants for work (they got them from the back for me), but the thing about those pants is, A.) they were way too long and they had to custom shorten them for me, and B.) the legs fit cause my thighs are like elephants, but they're loose around my hips. Not cool. So to make myself feel better I indulged in a new year's sale at one of my other favorite clothes places and bought a new shirt. ($15 for a REALLY cute one! That's way cheap for Japan.)

Also, I hate doing laundry here. I have to do laundry at a coin laundry facility below my apartment building, but it's SCARY. There's a security camera there, but still... all the creepy, child molester, serial killer-esque looking people go there to do their laundry. I'm scared every time I go down there... ugh. They look at me with their lecherous looks, and it's SO ICKY!! So I always put off doing laundry until it's ABSOLUTELY necessary. It sucks, but really... I do NOT like going down there. Ewww. Plus coin laundry is expensive. Just to wash and dry my laundry costs me 550 yen each time. That's like $5. $5 to do laundry? Um, no thanks. But I don't get a choice in the matter.

Speaking of expensive. Why is this country SO EXPENSIVE? I spent almost $20 buying contact lens cleaner solution. I mean, okay, it came with two bottles, but isn't that a little... expensive? Or it is like that in the states too? Anyway, I had to buy new razors to shave too, and a pack of 4 was like $15... okay, I know those are expensive in the states, but it sucks. Make up remover towelettes were a good $10 too, and this moisturizing stuff I have to buy to put in my bath that helps my rashes and dry skin costs $8, which I guess is cheap cause I can use it 12 times, but it adds up... Living expenses are a lot more than I guessed. It sucks. And don't even get me started on food costs.

ALTHOUGH because it's the New Year here, and all Japanese people eat mandarin oranges on new year's, those are CHEEEEEAP! A pack of 8 for roughly a DOLLAR. WHOA OKAY. I'M THERE. And they're REALLY good too. The ones I bought before were not as sweet and were harder to peel, but these babies... ohhh yummy!! I ate 4 of them in one sitting once. Hahaha, I can't help it.

Okay well I realize I have been rambling for eternity now, but I thought besides just my daily life people might be interested in my rants and raves of Japan too? Either way this should have made up for any lack of posting, haha. Sorry no pictures though, I honestly haven't taken any for a really long time... I should. I will! One of these days. Farewell!

Hello everyone! Sorry for not writing in so long. Fortuneately for all of you I woke up bright and early in a really good mood for no special reason (even though it's raining outside?) so I thought I would write about my happenings of late! (Hahaha, even though it's like 7:30 in the morning. I got up at 6 today, aren't I a good child? It's cause I hafta work today though.)

So, school is obviously finished. I got some decent grades, nothing lower than a B, woohoo! Now let's just see how I fend next semester when I attempt to take on 16 credits, haha I'm scared for my life. Last time I tried doing 15 credits at Chemeketa I ended up dropping a class. But!! That was only because that class only met once a week and was half an online class, and I couldn't really handle a half-online class. This time I can do it!! It's mostly fun seeming classes anyway... except journalism. Ew. But it's required, and I have friends in that class so it's okay I think.

Work goes well! I get along with my coworkers (well, except for one but I don't work with her hardly ever so it's not a big deal), my boss is really nice, I get free meals (OH YEAH you heard me.), the work itself isn't so bad either. Well, when the customers get drunk then it's a little bit frightening (you never know how they'll act or what they'll do, ugh), but for lunch service it's almost always smooth cause no one drinks alcohol then. Lucky for me! I am sooo looking forward to my first paycheck.

On the 30th we have our "bounenkai" which is like a party thing you have with your coworkers at the end of the year, kind of like saying "thanks for working hard this year! Let's work hard next year too" hahah. All Japanese people have this thing with their work or sometimes other groups I think. Generally these parties involve drinking, but I'll pass, I'm not really a drinker... although it's fun to watch other people get drunk, LOL! I dunno what I'm doing for actual new year's eve yet. Probably chilling with my friends, watching the Kouhaku utagassen on TV or something. (It's a show that like 70% of all of Japan or some outgrageous number of people watch on new year's eve every year. I just made up that statistic but I bet it's close on target!!)

As for Christmas, my friend Rebeca is having a small party at her apartment with some of our other TUJ friends, which will involve much eating of delicious foods!! and playing of games maybe?! I dunno what all we're gonna do, maybe I can convince them to go to karaoke, hahaha. (Probably not, but who knows.) Anyway, at least I'll be surrounded by friends on Christmas. I wish I could be with my family and friends in Oregon too though, it sucks. :( Next year, just you all wait!!

Well, I need to go get ready for work now. Luckily for me today is half-day. No 12 hours for me today, wahaha! I'm done at 2pm today. Well, a little after that cause I will eat with them... too bad I don't get paid for eating. Oh well. Farewell! I'll try to update more often in the future.

Everyone rejoyce! For Rachel is employed. At a sushi restaurant, haha. I went there today to talk with the manager and we worked stuff out. I was guaranteed this job anyway cause

a.) My friend Tomoko from media arts introduced me to it
b.) It's a brand new store and they have a very limited staff now

Everyone there is sooo nice!! The manager is super nice and the other people were friendly as far as I could tell too. The waiter, Ryo, was SUPER funny! He's one of those super-outgoing fun to be around people. He's gonna be showing me the ropes so I'm glad it's someone I know I can get along with!

I start on the 5th, the day after finals. I'll be working every day except Monday and Friday, from 4:30 to 10 at night. When I get used to the work they said I can work all day too. For now I'm just learning so they said just nights is okay.

I got free lunch when I came to visit today too! I don't like fish, (good thing they asked me, haha) so they made me up some delicious vegitable sushi, tofu, and tenpura. It was suprisingly good! (I even ate the enoki mushrooms and daikon radish, go me.) Ohhh tenpura is so delicious though. So was that tofu stuff I had... I can't believe I got it for free, too. Usually sushi and tenpura are expensive. And I drank so much green tea I'm suprised I didn't drown, haha. I had to wait a while until lunch hours were over so we could talk, and in the meantime Ryo just kept filling up my tea cup, so I just kept drinking! I must be so caffinated by now. But hey, I ate a nice healthy lunch.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to making some money!! I need to go apply for my working permit ASAP though. I need to go to school and ask OIS about my permission letter though, cause I think they sent it to the dorms... I need to find Aki (dorm manager) and ask. (Last time I saw Aki at school he gave me some mail that somehow hadn't transfered over to my new address.)

It seems like school is already over, but that's not the case so I need to go work on my essays!! Go go go Rachel~~!