update

kay, so the photos are all uploaded onto my kodakgallery.
お楽しみ！

oh, i forgot

When we were at Osanbashi, there was this cruise pulling out, or something. I really have no idea what was going on. All I know is when we got there, there was a huge ship docked, and all the people on it were standing at the railing throwing colored paper streamers to the people standing on the Osanbashi side. I took tons of pictures of the streamers and stuff, and also whipped out my small camera to catch a video of the ship leaving the dock.

you wanted photos...

So Saturday (thank you, Molly!) was incredibly fun. Molly found out, through Flickr, about a Yokohama photo tour thing. It's a group of people who all live in the Yokohama area; we all met up Saturday morning at Yokohama station and spent the day walking around taking pictures. And I mean the whole day. We met up at 1pm, and Molly and I peaced out around sundown. We walked from Yokohama station, through Tobu and over to Noge-cho, past Pacifico and Minato Mirai, Aka-Renga, and finally over to Yamashita Koen and Osanbashi. It was a lot of fun, but my feet were killing me.
The group turned out to be a really interesting mix of people, too. Aside from me and Molly, there were about 8 other 30/40-something Japanese, a French woman who's been living in Japan for the past 6 years (yet speaks barely any Japanese), and a Korean woman who was actually just visiting Japan for the weekend, and wanted to take some pictures.
I'm currently in the process of uploading all the photos to my Kodakgallery --it takes *forever*, I took about 300 photos! But I'm sticking a few into the post here, also a video! ^_^
First, we found some cherry blossoms! It's still a little early for them, so they're not out everywhere, but they were beautiful!
This is part of the temple over in Noge-cho, which I'd never been to before. I loved the pinwheels. Took lots of pictures of them! ^_^
Oh, and remember Jack Cafe that I went to last week for the triple-birthday? Well, we walked past it on the way to Osanbashi, so I snapped a picture of it. I really want to go back!
Lastly, view of the Minato Mirai skyline at sunset, from Osanbashi. You can see Pacifico, Landmark, and the Aka Renga.

3rd term thoughts

The nightmare is over!
Lol.
Well, not a nightmare, exactly, but 3rd term has been pretty draining. After 4 months of having the same classes every day, the switched-up schedule took some getting used to. Sometimes literature, sometimes pop culture..and IJ thrown into the mix twice a week. IJ which, more often than not, ended up getting the short end of the stick, homework-wise. Oops.
The hardest part overall was definitely the lit class. We've been going at a pretty fast clip, and along with each short story, we also read a related scholarly article, and wrote our own essay. Some of the stories were longer and harder than others; I actually think the first story we read, the Endo Shusaku one, was the easiest even though it was the longest (and, I think, the oldest). Some of the stories I liked, and a couple of them made me want to bang my head against the wall.


I had my end-of-term interview with Ari-sensei on Friday morning. As expected, she talked about how I need to work on upping my kanji skills over the next term, and introducing some more formal words into my vocabulary. Which is something I've been sort of self-conscious about too, mostly because I feel like since most of the other kids here are grad students and stuff, they're all coming from a background of lots of reading in Japanese for their coursework. So I worry sometimes that I'm kind of behind in that sense. So, that's my goal for 4th term! ;-)
Oh, and I made the mistake of telling Ari-sensei that I didn't really have any plans over break--which got me stuck with a whole mess of homework that I'm now expected to do over break. Joy! *note sarcasm*
I should've taken a page out of Molly's book. When Otake-sensei asked if she had any plans over break, Molly was like "Yes, I have a friend coming. The whole time. Lots of traveling. No time for homework. Sorry. Two weeks. Whole time. Yup."
Wish I'd done that! >_<

It's break!

So, there's every possibility that my Spring Break will turn into a veg-fest eventually, but it has definitely not been lacking in excitement so far.
Thursday after class I went with Jason, Jeff, Molly, and Misa to go see "The Golden Compass," which I had been wanting to see for a while (sorry Mom!). It was pretty good. Not as good as the book, obviously. There were definitely some problems, some places where the movie felt kind of jerky, or like it moved too quickly. And that ending! (if you've read the books, you know what I'm talking about) But there were also several moments that really resonated with the book. Seeing the movie, though, really made me want to read the books again! (-_-) But I don't have them with me *sigh*
Anyway.

新曲

This week's PV. I was intending to put up a different one, but then I discovered that the PV for Kanjani8's new single (drops 3.12) was on youtube, so I couldn't resist!
^_^
The song is called ワッハッハ "Wa-ha-ha." Yes, as in the sound of laughing.
Witness the dorks in action! (but the dorkiness is why we love them)
Kanjani 8 cleans a bathroom, Yoko sets his hair on fire, and Ohkura plays Whack-a-Mole on Yasu's head.

i get to leave when?

I have to say, I am completely on board for this whole no afternoon class thing. Monday, when I went to leave school at 12:30 in the afternoon, I felt like I was doing something wrong, and kept half-expecting one of the sensei to come chasing after me to bring me back.
;-P
I'm suddenly finding myself with all this free time on my hands that I don't exactly know what to do with. The homework load has noticeably lightened. And I know part of that is due to this being the last week before break, and that it will be increased later once the project work gets going, but for now...I'm enjoying life. ^_^
Also, the weather lately has been gorgeous, and only slightly chilly, so I've been in *such* a good mood.