Okay so I liked. I suck.

Amanda has been really really bad at updating the blog this semester. Super bad. This is not because I've been having no fun and therefore nothing to report, actually I've been too busy with adventures (whether good, bad or exciting, it's a mix) to update since I get to sit in my off time with my friends here on the couch instead of being locked away on the third floor at 7pm with nothing else to do but kill time until I could leave for school in the morning. So this semester has been much much better, one for the obvious reason that I'm still here and didn't have to leave again (woo hoo!) and that everything else is great. I have more friends, more freedom, more comfortable futons, etc. etc. :)

As for what I've been up to, I just finished escorting my Mom and James around Japan (we hit Osaka, Hirakata (city I live in), Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima, and Miyajima), then I turned around and over the weekend said good bye to Alex (boyfriend!! erm, I mean yeah that guy I'm dating (!!)) because he's in China on his vacation for a week, and then I also had to plan Erica's birthday fun for this Wednesday. All of this is on top of the normal stress of papers, submitting my stuff to Williams Mystic, quizzes, tests, lectures on pet cemeteries, and general chaos. Needless to say I got it all done and I'm closing in on the May 1 deadline for all the Mystic stuff. The folks doing the admissions thing are being very nice and understanding (and I hope) kind of impressed that I'm doing this from Japan.

The boring school stuff is that I can't be late to class anymore because I've been late almost everyday this semester (usually only by like 3-5 minutes and if you know me or work with me you know this is pretty damn good for me) for my Japanese class so now I get up 2-2 1/2 hours early to get to class. I've been good for a week now! I've got to read up on the legal system in China for my law class (which is making me more and more nervous that Alex is there the more I read, not a good thing.), get ready for a role play in my history class of Perry entering Japan, doing a paper for that class on Wako (Japanese medieval pirates) and a paper on Yuurei (Japanese ghost/spirits). Next week is Golden Week, which is normally a week off for the Japanese, but we only have two days of class (Tuesday and Wednesday) so aside from bugging Alex about his trip (he gets back Tuesday) I'll be doing day trips around the Kansai area and hopefully getting some papers out of the way.

I normally don't get to do posts because I'm distracted at home and I want to update everything and start where I left off, which is hard when you have a billion things going on and you stopped updating a few months ago. So I'm going to try to bring you up to speed as best I can. Erica turned 23 this year and has the "aging syndrome" that Tessa has where they both freak out at getting older and normally end up a drunk ball of tears. Erica didn't want anyone to know when her birthday was and it was going to stay that way but I somehow figured it out and committed it to memory months ago last semester and have since tortured her with that fact. Luckily I told a few people a week or so in advance and we got a plan together: we were going to get a few people together, give her a roll out piano and a rirakkuma video game (it's the relax bear that's friends with Hello Kitty and you make hot cakes (pan cakes) in it), and get her drunk.

It was a success on all levels, although word got out and WAY too many people knew about her birthday than she would've liked. Also we had to face the problem that she's vegan and we lucked out on finding an ice cream cake in Japan, but a vegan cake was pushing it. Instead I MacGyver-ed up a "cake" with Tracey's help. I took a bunch of birthday candles, melted them onto a Jack Daniel's bottle and then surrounded that by open bars of black chocolate on a plate. It was awesome and made Erica very happy.

After presents and cake we went over to Daddy's Shoes (the local bar that's a block from our dorm) and proceeded to drink fairly late into the night. Most friends made appearances and even poor sick Maura was a trooper and hung out. Tracey and I both had exams the next day but I got to be around 3am and Tracey at 5am. Luckily I saw this coming so I got up early and had been studying not only at the bar (lol) but a few days prior too. The best part of the night, for me at least, was our RA Misato getting really drunk and wandering around the bar "helping" people study Japanese. At one point I turned to her and said, "Daijyobu Misato-chan? Yopparai desu ne!" (Are you okay Misato? You're drunk!) to which she turned and said, "Amanda, that was perfect Japanese. ... I hate you." Everyone cheered at the last part because slowly but surely I've made her more and more gaijin.

Well more later when I can get my stuff together!