Hi! Quick update on what I've been doing this summer/fall: I stained our new deck, which took me awhile. I went on a week bike trip just me to Ocean City, Maryland from 9 Montvale Court. Then I rode the Obamawagon through Indiana where I presented on a teacher panel, Ohio, Massachusetts(You rock Tony Bernardo in your Hippie Palace), New York(First Indianaite to love on Nathan Gilbert), saw my elementary school sweetheart Jessica Sobin and Family at the comedy club, had a beer with Christiana Simon and her first dude, and then partied in the streets of Philadelphia with And [View Full Entry]

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A random memory, but it came to me as I was packing my suitcase this morning and looked up to see a caricature of J-rocker I drew about two years ago. For our Japanese classes in university in the first through third year we were required to do skits at the end of each semester to illustrate our grasp of the Japanese language. And for me I always ended up doing the most random and insane things: first semester I was helping my friend who was hungover after drinking too much beer for lunch, second semester Sora and I did a [View Full Entry]

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“For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.” --Souza For once I will take [View Full Entry]

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A random way to start off this entry, but it will break the ice from being so long at bay from posting. I made this entry over at MySpace and LiveJournal this morning, and thought that it could very well work in the Travel Blog as well (since it deals with language, language barriers, accents, etc.). So this is a small lesson in life with regards to words in Southern American English that differ from standard American English. In other words: see how the South bastardizes American English even further. To me the Southern dialect is much more laid back, sloppy, [View Full Entry]

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Tina, I really wish you had been here today. This morning I made my mom and her boyfriend some buckwheat pancakes with chopped walnuts and a caramelized pan fried apples in substitution of maple syrup. It was one of those moments where as a cook I wasn’t quite sure if I liked the outcome or if something could have been different. But cooking pancakes this morning made me think of the Running Club I was in back at Kansai Gaidai. On our first long run to Yamada-ike Koen the entire walk back all Tracy-Sensei would talk about was pancakes, how good [View Full Entry]

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I apologize for the amount of updates in this past week. I have a feeling they will slow quite significantly (well.. to at least once a week, haha) as I finally begin a full-time job and try to regulate my schedule to fit this. I'm not entirely certain what will happen from August until the end of December with regards to my employment: for the immediate future I'm working at the temp agency doing.. something. Probably training for a receptionist position at another firm for when a job becomes available. I know my boss is going to take care of me [View Full Entry]

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I say “tadaima”. You say “what did you just call me?” Here I am. Doing all that I can. Maybe someone will understand. And that one will hold my hand. Humor me. Back to work. That's a clip from a blog entry of a former Kansai Gaidai exchange student; the rest for those who are interested can be read here, though I highly recommend any of you reading this to take a look. I can't say that I entirely understand his point of view since each of our experiences was [View Full Entry]

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"Do what is going to make you happy for the next six months" were the wise words of my senior number one husband. It's nothing long, beautiful and poetic but I never really expect that from Jenny. She's always blunt with me, and tells me straight up what she thinks and how she feels. It's been a long time since the two of us have been able to talk. I remember a lot of days at Gaidai where I'd fall asleep on the tatami mat beside her futon, laying upside down on the couch while she ranted about something ignorant that [View Full Entry]

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I am absolutely exhausted right this moment but with good reason at least; hopefully this entry will make some coherent sense and I apologize if it doesn't. But today has been wonderful in every sense of the word. I had my second Kansai Gaidai reunion with my friends Quill and Aurora. Quill flew in this week to visit her for a few days, and they asked me sometime back if I'd like to go sightseeing around Washington D.C. with them. Of course the natural answer was "yes"! I love them both so much, and it really felt good to feel like [View Full Entry]

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I’ve been doing some reflecting. This time on the day I returned from Japan. Today marks exactly one month since I left my home there in Osaka. The memories that I have in photos, in dreams, in conversations with people I met there are still very close to my heart, and I think about them a lot. Perhaps today’s thoughts were stirred by talking with Nozomi, and posting back and forth the way we used to say “kawaii!” “kawaikunai!” at one another before lapsing into peels of laughter. Perhaps it they were brought up by talking to Felix about how people [View Full Entry]

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