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Holy crap! Where the hell did the last 2 years go?! I guess its true that time flies when you're having fun! I am still in Japan and loving it. Moved to Kawasaki this April, dont love it here too much but am learning to deal with it. Will likely move back to Osaka next March. Osaka is really my hometown here I think. People are nicer, food is better, job is better.....everything better. I think I will go for now, but look for more updates soon! Wow a year has gone by since I updated the front page of my website! I think this just proves that more than enough has been happening in my life that I cannot even update you all. First and foremost, as today is Father's day....let me just wish my dad a happy one here! So if you are out there dad..."Happy Father's Day!". And now on to the big news....I got a job in Japan. Yes that is right folks, as of August 6th, I will no longer be living in the US. I will be in Japan! I have to say I am excited but quite nervous at the same time. I have to say when moving out of the country...there is alot to consider. Especially on the "what the hell am I going to do with all this furniture..."front. I'm starting to think getting a storage unit might not be a bad idea. I should check into that while I am down in San Diego over the 4th of July. Well I am about to doze off here, but I figured it might not be a bad time to fill all the peeps in finally. It's been a LONG time since I last updated here, but well I finally have some really good news! I'm a College GRAD! After years of going to school, taking breaks, I'm finally finished. I have to say there is a great sense of accomplishment. And if all goes well I will be in Japan in about 6 months. Life is hard when you are busy accomplishing your goals! I've really been neglecting this space for documenting my life. Although I have to admit living life is much more interesting, then writing about it here. So lets see what I have I been up to lately? Not too much, school has been consuming a good portion of my life. But this is to be expected no? I went skiing with my Japanese classmates in April, it was so much fun! I'm just sad the ski season is over, I was just getting into it too! Next ski season i am so planning to take the mountains by storm! For now though I'll just start body boarding and maybe learn to surf again and work on my tennis skills, since lately all of my friends ask me to play tennis.....but I sadly admit I haven't been good at tennis since high school! Japanese class has been alright despite the fact that my favorite sensei is no longer teaching us. And that half of my class has dropped! But well I am learning for me right? So I will fight! This weekend I learned two new words even! I hope now to study at least one hour a day...I think I can do it. And if I get back into writing in my jounral nightly I think I will be able to get back some of the forms I learned that I have forgotten how to use, eg. ba form! I realized this weekend that I want to be able to speak Japanese with my friends more and more. I've been watching alot of drama lately too, I just finished "Hito ni yasashiku" and I am currently watching "Oyaji" it's been pretty good so far! Well time to study for midterms! Ok Ok I know I've not updated here in what like 4 months. I'm such a bad person. But needless to say I've been so busy this quarter. And technically I still am...but this thing called procrastination drives you to do crazy things. In less than 8 hours I have the final I am most afraid of this qaurter, Intermediate Macroeconomics. If only I had the matrix and could do a quick upload of it all! Well I should update you all on what I've been up to, generally I'm not a big fan of the laundry list style update, but it will have to do for now. I'll touch on all this a bit more later in the week. So without futher ado : ♥ I learned to knit, amd currenting working on a cute scarf! ♥ I passed the JLPT kyuu 4!!! I'm well on my way to mastering Japanese! ♥ I'm "walking" in the June UCSC Cowell Graduation, even though i won't be finished with school till December. You all better be there! ♥ Have been hanging out with people from my Japanese class, and meeting new people as well. I'm always on the lookout to meet more! ♥ I'm planning on visitng Japan again in September for two weeks, just before my final quarter starts. ♥ I've been working on a new layout for sungirl.org....I hope to launch it over my spring break. ♥ I beat FFX-2! ♥ My pastry baking skills are improving! Well back to studying for now, wish me luck! Ok so my lack of sleep and proper care for myself caught up with me, which lead to me having a minor cold and trying to rest as much as I possibly could. I've still got a cold, but I don't feel nearly as bad as I did about a week ago. So I got my grades back from both of the schools I've been attending, and while I'm not a 4.0 student yet. I'm a solid B. Which for my first quarter back to school back to a University isn't bad in my book. However it just means I need to work a little harder on studying for some econ stuff so I can boost my gpa more. I went to my friend Sharon's graduation from Cal State Sacramento yesterday. I'm so proud of her, she worked so hard and is finally done. I can't wait till this time next year to say the same. And then in June 2005 hopefully I can say I'm in the JET program! On Friday we held our Winter Solstice party at my house, it was fun. The theme of our white elephant gift was "sex, drugs and rock n'roll" I think everyone had fun with that one. Earlier in the day my housemates and I exchanged gifts. I got a couple of really cool and helpful books about Japan, and Final Fantasy X2 and the special players guide from them! They are such awesome guys! I just hoped they liked my gifts as much as I like theirs! Well I should be going now, I still have to pack a bit and then its off to SD! Oh my word! I think I ate so much I can nearly split my pants right now. Well not really...but it damn near feels like it. But well if you can't eat like a pig on Thanksgiving, when can you? And the food is always so good. As usual we all went to my Aunts house in Redondo Beach for turkey day. It was nice, my cousin was also in town from Sonoma State so it was like a mini college girl reunion. We've even made plans to chill together up in the bay area. Today we made the usual pilgrimage to the stores. I have to say Mervyns was the most packed I've seen in a LONG time, though I really don't go shopping very much anymore so any type of crowds would have been too many people. Got a few cute things, but since I flew down here I also had to hold back on buying xmas presents. Luckily I can shop midweek without too much hassle. And the best part of today......was that i got to eat at Hurry Curry of Tokyo!! I LOVE that place so much....it is quite possibly the best Japanese curry restaurant this side of the Pacific! I took my mom, aunt, and cousin there and they all agreed it was worth the drive! I think I've turned them all into curry lovers! I have to say due to the Santa Ana winds here in San Diego, the air quality is really really bad. The winds are stirring up all the ash from the fires that were burning here earlier in the month, making it really hard to breathe. My mom said yesterday morning it was almost as dark and ashy out as it was when the fires were burning. Needless to say as much as I love my hometown I can't wait to get back to the bay area where the air is clearer. And also I get to see Fanny Pack on Sunday!! So after a long and grueling 5 hours.....I am now the proud owner of a 2001 Honda Civic 2dr coupe in Black. Or as some of my friends have called it a "sexy-bitch" car. I'll post more pictures later of course, but for now here is the one from the Honda dealership. It so doesn't do it justice.  My mother called me about 8 hours ago to inform me that she is now staying at my grandmother's house and that she is ok. To which I replied "what? Why? What is going on?" She seemed upset that the news stations were not keeping us Northern California people as up-to-date on the current fire situations in Southern California. Needless to say there are 4 relatively large fires burning right now in my hometown. One of which is slowly creeping closer and closer to my mom's place, hence her evacuation to my grandmothers. She told me that all of our pets are ok and that she took as much as she could from our house that was important and non-replaceable. Needless to say even though she is not in the house now, I am scared. The idea of not knowing if it will burn down is scary. I know it is just a house, but it also feels like if it burns part of me, my life, my history burns with it. My heart goes out to the people in San Diego right now. The sky is coated in ash, and I would believe it is very hard for people to breathe there right now. It's so bad that tomorrow's Monday night football game to be played in San Diego has been moved to Arizona. After a decent nights sleep I can only explain yesterdays vomiting attack as food poisoning. Though I am still trying to figure out what I ate that could have caused it. A friend once told me when he got food poisoning from cheese he ate, he felt as though he was going to die. I felt like that on a few occasions yesterday. Glad to be feeling at about 85% better now. Today whilst walking to the library from Social Sciences 1, I saw that the student health center is having flu shot walk-ins all day today. I'm actually considering going in and getting one, yes me the girl who HATES shots with a passion. I figure it's probably not a bad idea right? I just have to wonder if they are free. Since I am starting to feel the pain of being a "poor college student". Something interesting I heard today on my commute was that Madame Chaing Kai-Shek died today. She was 105 years old. I think this has only recently become more of an interest to me as I've now read some of her writing for my History of Modern East Asia class. Time to get back to studying, I have an Econ midterm today...lets hope I rock it! I don't know if there are really words to describe how much I truly loved this movie. As I told Joshe last night after the movie, this is an asian culture lovers wet dream! The action and story were great! I think the only thing I am disappointed about is the fact that because the original movie was considered too long, so I have to wait till February to see vol.2 (ie. the other half). In other news I'm about 2 weeks away from midterms and papers being due, damn the quarter systems moves faster than I remember. Oh well it just means I get out of school faster right? I also have to really start studying for the JLPT....in no time December 7th will be upon us I fear. So much to study, and not enough time! So since I have to be at school on Fridays at the ungodly hour of 8am, what better thing to do then waste the time I have to wait for my next class by updating right? My discussion section for my econ class went well, as I suspected it was more like tutoring and going over the homework problem sets more than anything else. So really we spent the last 45 minutes doing the homework that is due next Friday. How spiffy is that?! My next discussion section is at 12:30, so needless to say I've got time to burn. But I also have to study this map of China for a map quiz. Of the joys of lower division classes. But so far the class is pretty interesting. I mean who wouldn't like to learn about wars and drugs? This weekend should be a nice one, though right now the only thing I have on my mind is the date I have with my bed at about 6:30pm when I get home from school. Hehe, I seriously think I need a nap or some coffee. Hrm perhaps I haven't lost my caffeine addiction. I just got back from taking my Japanese placement test, they placed me in need of starting at Japanese 2! What the hell? I'm taking the JLPT in December for over 130 hours of completed Japanese and UCSC decides I am a level 2! I'm just rather frustrated, (can you tell). I wonder if I can take Japanese at my old JC (even if I don't get credit for it.) Or maybe just take Japanese lessons from a private local institution. Anyone know of those in the bay area? Man I need to practice more, but instead I'll go see Radiohead at Shoreline. Maybe that will cheer me up! Any help or suggestions on my situation would be greatly appreciated! :) Ok so can I just re-iterate how much moving sucks. I'm beginning to think that I'm going to be living out of boxes for at least a few more months. This weekend I had intended to go through a few more of them and get organized but well I lost my motivation quickly as the temperatures got up to the high 90's here. I guess the indian summer is on its way. Needless to say I got a few unpacked but not nearly as many as I had hoped as I opted to spend sometime in the local air conditioned movie theaters. Speaking of movies I saw Once Upon a Time in Mexico and American Splendor this weekend. Both were pretty good movies, I'd suggest seeing them if you are looking to go out to the movies. I also saw a trailer for Lost in Translation, a movie with Bill Murray set in Japan. I have to say this movie is on the top of my "must see" list. Bill Murray, possibly one of the funnier actors out there in Japan of all places! Maybe I'll convince some people to drive up to SF to see it this weekend. Last night was the season finale of Sex and the City until January. It was a good finale, I can't wait to see what is in store for the ending. I also watched Carnivale a new series on HBO....its very good but VERY weird. Today my boss came up to me and asked me if I was still interested in staying on part-time. I said yes, but told him again what I could do hour wise. It appears that our new company is being rather slow to hire a replacement and they are not sure if they want to use a temp here or not to do reports I currently am held responsible for. Honestly as long as it fits into my time frame I don't mind the extra cash. I've been told I'll know for sure by Friday. So wow its Tuesday, but it feels like Monday. Though this is a good thing, it means the week will go by fast....well hopefully anyhow. This past weekend I spent in sunny San Diego, it was fun. Though a few nights of sleeping on a couch really makes me long for my bed. On my trip among having a really nice dinner at Buca di Beppos, I also bought a new mattress for my bed. I can't wait till it is delivered on Friday, hopefully this cures all those back aches and pains I've been having. On a sadder note, my father called me on Sunday to let me know our family dog Samantha passed away. From what I had heard about her she was pretty sick, I had not seen her since 1997 (except in pictures). Sammy will be missed....but well I know a few other people and puppies that she has up there to chill with. :)  Well time to get back to working! I'm having one of those days where no matter how much coffee I drink, I just can't wake up! I didn't really go to bed that late even, I think I finally dozed off around 12:30am, which is around my usual time. So I have no clue what is causing this glazed feeling I have. Perhaps it is because there is very little work for me to do right now, I'm getting excited about flying in an airplane, and tomorrow is Friday. Oh well I guess all I can do is keep drinking coffee till lunch and hope that wakes me up. Last night I went over to Akiko's house. We cooked okonomiyaki, it was sooo good! Much better than the stuff you can buy at Hiroshima in San Jose. To me their okonomiyaki is more like just yakisoba....even though I like Hiroshima style, they make it funny. So we cooked that and talked for such a long time it was fun. She told me anytime I needed to escape from the new house with 3 male housemates I could come to her place. On Tuesday Josh brought me the other part of my birthday present, the dvd of Reisei to jonetsu no aida (Between Calm and Passion). I've watched about half of it now and its really interesting. I think the hardest part of it is, its in Japanese, Italian and English. Its cool to see Yutaka speaking Italian and English. Tonight I am moving a few things to my new place to make moving next week a little easier. And to make my room a bit cleaner and figure what the layout of the room will be. This weekend I am going to San Diego to visit my mom, and I get to fly! This weekend started off with a bang. Well not literally, but it was fun. I went to the Toronto Blue Jays vs. Oakland A's game. It was a lot of fun. The A's didn't win (I'm not a big A's fan anyway), so it was a bonus for the Blue Jays fan I was with.pic. The next day I had to be up early though, I got to see a sample of what Christina's wedding dress will kinda look like. I have to say it is really pretty. I'd post the pictures I slyly took with my keitai, but I'd feel bad if her groom stumbles upon my journal and sees them. So you'll just have to wait till April 2004 to see them! After seeing dress upon dress it was time to meet up with Josh and visit Ikea. I'd not been there in a long time and well Josh had never been there, so it was an adventure. I think he's now got a great plan for how his future living room is going to look. I really hope he gets the sofa he was eyeing, its really nice! While there I was in the mood to buy new sheets, I think the last new set I got was when Seiko and Aya came to visit so I was due. And well either the girl in me is coming out, or someone secretly replaced my mojo with a really girly-girls...because I bought pink sheets. And not just pink sheets, I'm talking magenta ones! It's all to match this bedset though, so once they have it for my bed size it will all come together nicely. After Ikea I felt like exploring which was nice since Josh and I had no plans. We took a nice little drive over the 92 bridge and found ourselves in San Mateo. We were actually trying to find the small Japanese community in that area...but without much luck. And of course I didn't bring my newspaper with the info. But we did find a cute little sushi bar and decided to eat dinner there. Mmm sashimi :) Then we ventured back down to the south bay and ended up seeing Freaky Friday. It was cute! Sunday was a pretty chill day, I have been taking my room apart slowly. Or at least been going through things and getting rid of things I no longer need or want. Man do I collect some stupid things. I also got out and went roller-blading, it felt good to get outside and exercise again. Well it's Monday again which means back to work. For Laughs This past Saturday I saw Chicago : the Musical in San Francisco. It was great! There were more songs than in the movie that was based on it, but I can see why they cut them out. I was a bit skeptical about it at first as Kevin Richardson of Backstreet Boys fame was playing Billy Flynn, although I have to say...he did an EXCELLENT job. I have more respect for him now. Overall Christina and I both really enjoyed the show. I also went and got my haircut on Saturday, this time I went to the Atelier Salon in Santana Row. My friend Kelly works there. I have to say its the best haircutting experience I've had in a while. I totally recommend going there if you have the little extra to spend. It's worth it to pamper yourself just a little bit. This week is a sports week, I'm going to see the A's vs. Blue Jays game on Friday. I'm not really an A's fan so either way it should be fun. Since it's not that big a deal to me on who wins! I used to be a big Padres fan when I was a kid, since both of my parents worked for them. But well they've kinda been in the toilet for a couple of years now. I'd really like to see a Giants game sometime to check out Pac Bell park. I also want to see the Yankees play to see Matsui, I'm so shameless! It seems as though the sooner I get to going back to school, the more nervous I get. Have I really been out of the full-time academic world for that long? Maybe I'm afraid I've lost my youth. Lately my idea of a good time is hanging out with my friends, and doing various things, like cooking, watching sports, etc. In other words I've not been to a "kegger" or gotten so drunk that I've puked in over a year now. Not that I'm saying I want to do that, but things have definitely changed. Last night I finished the book Howl's Moving Castle by Dianne Wynne Jones. I really liked it, and can't wait to see how Miyazaki adapts it to his anime style. Though thats not to be released until 2004 in Japan....so I'll have to wait I while I suppose. I also started reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. It seems as though everyone I know is surprised I've not already read this title, so I figured I might as well give it a read. So far I'm enjoying it. Today I found out what books I'm going to need for next quarter and all i can say is "ouch"! Boy has the price of textbooks sky-rocketed in the last few years. All of the books for my major are around $100 each brand new. Luckily the internet now exists and there are plenty of used textbook sites out there. I also found out what books they use for their Japanese program there. I figure in the next month or so if I study up and get some good speaking practice in, I should be able to test into Japanese 4 there....no problems. *crosses fingers* Wow this weekend was a much needed breathe of fresh air. Lately I feel so tied up with worries about where I am going to live, what I am going to do for money, whether or not I will excell in school. Honestly it is so much to think about....especially when I look at the big picture and think "this is my future." I know I should be so dramatic about it, but really it is at least for the next year or so of my life. A lot of hard choices have to be made, in such a short period of time. So this weekend I set a few deadlines for myself, I told myself starting August 1st, no more putzing around on moving to Santa Cruz, I have to find housing. Which is not to say I am not going to look until then, but it does mean I need to get my rear in gear. No more "I don't wannas". I'm going to San Diego this weekend to visit my dear mum before she goes off to Australia. Did I mention I am totally envious of her? Oh well hopefully she brings me back lots of omiyagi (souvenirs). Friday I went to karaoke with friends and ended up singing a few songs....*it was fun* I sawPirates of the Caribean this weekend with Josh, it was awesome! And I sat out for some tanning near my pool. Whew this weekend came and went so fast, seems like just yesterday I was saying "TGIF!" Oh well just gives me something to look forward to in the next 5 days. This past weekend was fun, Saturday I went rollerblading with my friend Akiko at shoreline park. We had to exercise before indulging in our iced coffee at Starbucks! We even took a picture with my new phone there, see:  Then after that I went to Devin and Arune's Tiki party. It was lots of fun, got to see a lot of new and old faces. In between partying I went to be an environmentalist and spoke to a group of about 20 people about the importance of the Earth Charter. I think the meeting went quite well. If anything Christina and myself are helping to promote the upcoming Earth Charter summit in Palo Alto in October. Sunday I went to the San Jose obon festival in Japantown. It was fun. I met up with some of my classmates and sensei there. Seeing the taiko drum groups and the obon dori was the highlight of the event. I think next year I want to dance in the obon dori, it looks like fun!  As you can see this past weekend was nice but a bit windy! You can see more pictures:here |
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   Sungirl@zo.com |
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