Hello! This journal is mostly friends only. I don't think it's fair to have a completely friends-only journal, because then it's hard for new people to get a feel for whether they want to add you. And some entries are harmless enough that they can stay public (which isn't all that many for me, but still a few from time to time). So, what you see below is an extremely brief sampling of what I write, which is mostly the things that are going on in my life that I feel like I need to remember later. These can range from boring to interesting to humorous, and sometimes feature pictures.

Friending policy is that I'm always flattered to be friended, and unless you seem too idiotic/boring/etc, I will most likely add you back. If I haven't after a month or so, however, please take me off your friends list, cause that's just weird, and unnerves me. I also make it a point to read every entry on my friends list and try to comment when I feel like it.

So, if you want to add me, please leave a comment in this entry. :) And, there you go!

This is why I do it; that's what I have to come home to!



hmmm...

So, I actually have gotten a job now, but it's not a "real" one. It's as a hostess at Fox & Hound, a pub chain with a location by my house, and eventually I'll be able to move up to waitress. So at least I'll be making some money while I keep looking for a better-paying full-time job in my field. Which is what I planned all along...

Otherwise, not much going on, just lots of hanging out with Kevin while he's still in town (swimming/tanning in his backyard!). Next month I'm moving into Eryn's mom's house for two weeks while her family is on vacation to dog/housesit XD I've also been continuing to mess with how stuff is arranged in my room, and selling textbooks online, and lots of other boring stuff. I also have a new phone, a purple Sony Ericsson z750, which is beautiful and amazing. A PURPLE PHONE!! <3 I love it, it is so great, and much better than my old phone. (Which, if anyone has T-Mobile and wants it--or doesn't and can unlock it--it's theirs.)

So recently I finished Meg Cabot's sequel to All-American Girl (a book Eryn gave me as a birthday present years ago and I really liked, being already a fan of the Princess Diaries series--even though I've given up on that now for being too repetitive), which is called Ready or Not. And, WOW. I was not expecting a book about the protagonist trying to decide if she should lose her virginity to her boyfriend!! ( But that's what it's about )

And I finally got caught up on the last episodes of the shows I've been watching this year... LOST, Ugly Betty, Supernatural. LOST was freakin' amazing!! Best season so far, hands DOWN. Supernatural... really did put their money where their mouth is instead of some miraculous happy ending, huh? crazyyy. I wonder what in the WORLD next season is going to be like.

Oh, the other day I got a haircut (nothing really drastic, it's still long, my bangs are just short again now) and then met up with Jeremy from Japanese class this past semester and Casey for dinner & drinking. It was awesome hahaha, and not just cause BOTH of them told stories about MULTIPLE occasions where guys hit on them persistently. Hahahahaaa. Ohhh AC.

And I got sucked into Enneagram stuff again today. In high school, I used to believe I was a 4 through-and-through. But when I took the test again, I am actually a 5 (or really, a 5w6). It really fits me. Then I made Kevin do it and he's a 7. Which is also hilariously fitting. Now I want to know what everyone else is. If you take it, comment here and tell me!!

Anyway, I feel like I'm kind of boring lately. But oh well. I'm happy, so who cares.

It's now 3 a.m. Tuesday night and I just finished writing my last undergraduate paper, which means I'm done with ALL of my work. Once I turn this paper in tomorrow... no more school. I had my only two exams today and they both went well. wowwww this doesn't seem real, it's pretty crazy @_@

I'm done with college work!!! @___@

I made a bento!!!


My cute little 100yen-store green cat bento box & kinchaku, and also 100yen-store purple butterfly chopsticks & black crane chopsticks case, though not from the same set. (The actual chopsticks that came with the green cat set were child-sized! So I didn't buy them.)

Omg, I didn't set out to do this or anything, though I'm aware that I'm now a gold-status weeaboo (first the honmei-choco, now this?!). I was just trying to think of stuff to put in my lunch for tomorrow (I bring lunch and eat it at work MWF--used to eat it with wpossee members, but everyone got too busy as the semester went on), which is usually sandwich/yogurt/carrots, and then I remembered I'd made korokke/croquettes last night, and still had some leftover rice chillin (warming really HAHAHA) in the rice cooker.


All packed up and ready to go!

And yeah. I made korokke last night, for the FIRST AND LAST TIME. It's such a crazy intensive process! (I used this recipe, loosely.) And the rolls of mashed potato (I added in peas, so they're vegetable korokke; wish I'd had some meat though) do not want to stay in the croquette shape as you put them through the dough, then the beaten egg, then the panko crumbs. And the loose crumbs collect at the bottom of your pan of oil you're frying in and burn and make the smoke detector go off (LIKE FIVE TIMES!!). Soooo frustrating! But, at least I have korokke now, for the time being, and they do taste pretty good. Wish I could just go to the grocery store like I did in Japan and pick up some ready-made ones... XD

wheee not only is it LEAP DAY (hell yeah!!!), it's time to finally talk about my classes, so I can get the preliminaries out of the way and start complaining about them. hahaha

MWF

9:00: English: Sex, Sass & Suffering in Restoration England. With Alex, who I had for my Heritage 101 small group and didn't really like, but I like him a lot better now. He also has the exact same voice and laugh as a certain recent-ish crush He's always trying to talk about gender roles and homosocial vs. homoerotic vs. homosexual, and I'm totally down with that. Unfortunately, I don't think the rest of the class is, and is just kind of 'huh? why are we making them gay?' which kinda sucks. We're reading a lot of racy plays in this class, which is kind of awesome--hence the "sex" in the title. It's definitely the better out of my two English classes, and even though it's at 9 and I wish it was later, it's not like I dread going to class; far from it.

11:00: English: Postcolonial Literature. Have I mentioned I don't like postcolonialism? Yeah, I don't. I hate interpreting otherwise normal texts with some b.s. postcolonial slant, and everything even vaguely postcolonial is imbued with so much interlinking confusing jargon that it's ridiculous. Whatever happened to just reading books, showing up for class, and talking about our responses to them? Noooo, we've got to have an agenda here, we've got to throw around fancy overblown terms. Baahhh. We already wrote a paper for this class and I got a B. Mostly, I was sick pretty much the whole time I was writing it, but also, I don't like postcolonialism and thus it's going to be hard for me to write good papers about it. sigh, whatever. Peter Anderson, the prof, is more or less pretty cool though, although he's the one throwing around all the jargon most of the time. He's also South African and has kind of an Afrikaans accent, which is cool. Kathryn is in this class with me, but so are quite a few really annoying people (one girl is the fight-with-the-professor type) who make it hard to want to speak up.

1:30: German 101. YAY GERMAN! Starting a new language is always interesting. It's been pretty fun so far, although I despise doing pair work in any language, and we do it in this class every day... makes me feel so grateful to Scott that he never, ever made us do any of that bullshit. But learning German is really fun, I'm liking the language a lot, although this class makes me want to go back to Germany sooo baaaddd. I was only there for a weekend but it was so great and I want to go back and stay longer... ride bikes around... enjoy the culture... it's so cool how when I walked into Chris's apartment building and went up the stairs, the stair area had been decorated by his grandma or so, and I really felt like I was at someone's home in America, because it looked just like a Midwest home, with the needlepoint sampler decorations, and little animal figurines--so much of Midwest culture is German-influenced, it was seriously exactly the same. It was so cool. gaahhhh Germany! I even had a dream about going there. Kinda weird. Anyway, I guess that's another reason why I'm taking German (although only for one semester, sadly, but I'll at least get the basics), so that if I ever go back to Germany, I can hopefully manage to express myself SOMEWHAT and not be 100% reliant on someone like Chris, which Rebecca and I totally were. *laughs*

TTH

2:00: Japanese advanced conversation. Which meets in the Japanese commons, so WHOO-HOO for having access again to my beloved language house. With Chika-san, in her third year of being the Japanese house resident (who, when I think about it, is quite possibly the first Japanese person I ever talked to. Kinda weird). And four other people, one of which is one of my old freshman crushes, although all of those types of crushes have been more 'visual' crushes, in that I think they're attractive and ogle them when I see them around campus, but I have no desire to date them. Over freshman and sophomore year I maybe had 15 different crushes like that. Oh, recently I saw my gay crush, the guy from the Lilly retreat who I was shocked (SHOCKED!) to find out was gay afterwards. But when I saw him again last week or so, I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed; he is so blond and sparkly. Oh well, haha. Anyway, it's kind of weird to actually be getting to know this random guy I thought was hot freshman year (I also think he's secretly gay now, haha). So it's a really small class, and kind of unstructured, which is pretty different from what I remember of intermediate conversation with Hyung-Hye sophomore year. But oh well, we're practicing, and that's pretty much all I'm taking this class for, is practice. (I wish I could take the Japanese prose class this semester, like everyone I know is in it, but it meets right between my English classes, and MW is reading-intensive enough with those two, I don't think I could realistically handle ANOTHER reading class in between them.)

I feel like the AC I used to go to freshman and sophomore year and the AC I go to now is totally different, in terms of the people in my major/minor classes, among other things. It's like I was some forgotten generation--when I mentioned in Japanese class how I used to live in the Japanese house, I could tell some people were surprised. Yeah, that was two years ago, and I was totally a part of it, it was such a MAJOR PART of my life (to the extent that I felt completely fulfilled living there and hated to have to move out and leave; even cried driving away from it on the last day just like I did on my last day of work at TP this summer) but it seems so far removed now. And in my English classes this year, I haven't recognized hardly anyone who was in the English classes I was taking freshman/sophomore year. Almost all these people were/are strangers to me. Maybe because a lot of those classmates were upperclassmen, and now I'M the upperclassman. I guess it's just that I was gone for a year, so the transition instead of smooth is more abrupt, but I dunno. It's really, really weird. Oh, and the people who are taking Japanese have all been new to me too. I've gotten to know quite a few of them, and in general they're really cool people, but they are just not the people who were in my classes before. Last semester in advanced Japanese, Casey and I were the only remnants of our 'generation' of Japanese. Everyone else started the year after us; it was kind of strange.

Oh, and I also got involved in something else which happened yesterday, which was a panel on study abroad in Asia, for anyone who might be interested in it. It was me and 7 other people, including Will, two guys who did IES Tokyo a year after I did (so they did fall 07, and they did Meikai too), this guy that Kathryn's after who went to China, Eric, and some others. We pretty much just sat at the front of a room and talked about various topics while a Powerpoint showed slides of pictures we'd taken. Only about 15 people showed up (I think it was under-advertised--oh well), but it was still really good and I had a lot of fun doing it. It's just weird--I don't get involved in anything, so when I do, it feels pretty odd. hahaha

Okayy it's time for food so I'm off to grab some, then go to German, then WEEKEND YAAYYYYYYYY. My parents are visiting and having dinner with me Saturday, and Sunday night Bernice is hosting a French major/minors dinner at her house, so Jackie and I are going and I'm SO EXCITED!!! YAY GOOD FOOD!!

Oh, what in the world. I have not been sick with this particular ailment since I was a little girl, pretty much. It's kinda weird, I can barely remember what happens and what to do during it. Basically, until Bekah and I hit puberty (give or take) we had really bad milk allergies, and if we consumed even a tiny bit of cheese or milk we'd be violently ill, throwing up nonstop, very soon afterwards. We'd have to keep buckets under our bed in case we didn't make it to the bathroom in time, and I have very distinct memories of my mom holding back my hair during the numerous times I got sick, and being home from school sipping Kool-Aid out of sippy cups watching The Price Is Right. (Once I babysat a little girl who had the same allergy, only her symptoms were respiratory, not digestive. Meaning she'd start having trouble breathing if she consumed milk or cheese. @_@ So I guess it could have been worse, that sounds scary.)

Around middle school it pretty much went away and we could eat pizza and things like that for the first time (hooray!) but we noticed that if we overdid it on cheese and consumed a whole lot, we'd get sick again, sometimes mild, sometimes not. So this has happened to me (the mild sickness, mostly just a vague nausea) a few times since then, but I've usually been good about not overdosing myself. Yesterday.... I was not. Let's see. I had some shredded cheese on my egg sandwich in the afternoon, Parmesan cheese on my pasta, some yogurt, some milk chocolate, and then a big fat grilled cheese sandwich with two slices of cheddar cheese around 1 a.m. (which was the kicker, and I was eating it so late to get fuel to keep me awake and working on my paper).

Pretty much I've spent the entire last night throwing up and today so far feeling nauseous and gross, and trying to keep down my Gatorade and the one cracker I decided to eat (when you're sick with this, it's best not to eat much of anything, and just let your system flush itself out). Surprisingly, I have been overwhelmed by the kindness I've been shown without even asking for it. Both my boss and the professor with the paper that was due today told me not to worry (I can even turn in the paper Thursday or LATER if I need to! Very fortunate, because I was not done with it), and when Emma (new roommate) heard me throwing up this morning she appointed herself my caretaker, and has been bringing me glasses of Gatorade and asking if I need anything. I AM BLOWN AWAY!! I could almost cry, I didn't ask for any of this and yet everyone is being so nice. (Maya has even kept me company on my bed all day long, though I know she's just overjoyed to have someone around during the day for once.) I'm really just used to dealing with being sick on my own and occasionally whining to my mom (which okay, I did do already) so this is crazy.

Moral of the story, even a past allergy can bite you in the butt, and I'll be more careful in the future. I really wish the nausea would just go awayyy... I can tell that I feel all right and ready to be energetic again underneath, but it's like this oppressive layer keeping me from doing so! raaghh

Now, look. I don't sit on my throne as the arbiter of all that is writing and English and act as if you're not worthy to be writing poetry or fiction, simply because you haven't studied it. So why do artist friends look at me with surprise when I know about art--enjoy going to art museums and know the artists there well--or even engage in it, though very rarely, myself? And after the surprise comes, instead of any warm acceptance of a kindred spirit, a polite (even bemused) toleration of a mere amateur. Simply because I haven't been trained in it at the collegiate level (unless you count one art history course in France) doesn't disqualify me from doing things like taking (good!) pictures or even drawing occasionally. It doesn't mean that I can't do it, or do it well, or even do it better than you (though I'm not saying I do). I understand why you have to jealously guard it, but since I'm not trying--at all--to withhold the verbal domain, or anything else really, from you (even if I'd like to!) it just seems fairly presumptuous; offensive, even. I could have easily studied art (photography) if I'd wanted to, just as you could have (and almost should be to justify your appropriation) studied literature; just because I wasn't able to doesn't mean I turned my back on it forever.

I'm just saying that I find this denial a little ridiculous. That's all.

It's a little weird to be coming to the end of something and not be freaking out about leaving it forever soon.

Whoa.

man oh man oh man, the Rilo Kiley show was pretty much the best thing I've seen in a long time. It was a VERY long set and everyone's feet were hurting like crazy by the end of it, but soooo worth it. I'm in love with Jenny Lewis (see icon). Okay, she has always been one of my biggest girl-crushes, but now even more so. She is my idol. She even has this perfect adorable cat ":3" face. sigh! I'm jealous. And Blake Sennett aka JOEY ONE OF THE BULLIES FROM OLD-SCHOOL BOY MEETS WORLD OMG. Seriously, I know they're trying to move away from those images, but come onnnn he still looks exactly the same (only pretty cute now) and it's kind of hilarious. ahah. But yeaaaah. It was really really good :> and so tiring! With me having a cold and all, even. On that note I should probably sleep now so I don't get sicker or something. (You know how you can still feel like you're ready to keep going, but your nose keeps running and it slows you down? Thats how it is right now. I'm angry because I feel like I've already had my cold for the year, my post-Comic Con sickness, so what the heck is up with this?! A stressful week that finally caught up with me I suppose. At least I blew my English test out of the water, in my opinion which may not count for much but at least I'm happy). I just wanted everyone to know how great it was. wheeeee

( Setlist )

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone [...]
[...] I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,--cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
[...]
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
--Alfred Tennyson, "Ulysses"

Uh, yeah, my English test today is on Tennyson. Why do you ask?

I'm sick of having this conversation. (Okay, it's only happened twice. I don't talk about this all the time. Really!)

Me: ...so, yeah, I can't believe [so-and-so] didn't know English wasn't a Romance language!
Person I Thought Knew This: English isn't a Romance language?

ENGLISH IS NOT A ROMANCE LANGUAGE. ENGLISH IS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE. Romance languages are Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian. English and German are more related than English is to any of those languages! (To see how they're related, check this shit out. It's like an evolutionary table! Here's the one for the Romance languages.)

Poll #1060677
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

English is not a Romance language.

If you didn't know that... why did you think it was? Because we're always hearing sooo much about the Latin roots? But we didn't borrow the GRAMMAR. It just boggles my mind. For most people who start studying Spanish or French, they have to spend a lot of time getting used to the whole verb system which is so alien to English. IT'S ALIEN BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT RELATED STRUCTURALLY.

All that aside, I do honestly want to know why you thought that though, if you did. And if you didn't, tell me so I can congratulate you! :D

[ETA: Results so far say that most people know that. woohoo!!! Do I just know really stupid people in person? XD]

:) :) She's a Maine Coon mix (FLUFFY TAIL!), 3 years old, and I've named her Maya. <3 She's super nice, purrs easily, like to lick you (hahah, bizarre!) and follow you around, and is just an all around awesome cat to live with me and my roommates and their two dogs (don't worry, she apparently likes dogs) in our house in Sherman. I adopted her from the animal shelter Bekah volunteers at, so she's already had her shots and everything.



yay kitty :D

(oh, and I'm home now!)

I'm really going to miss working at TOKYOPOP... because conversations like these won't be part of my life anymore.

(Wednesday)
Alexis: Sarah~ want to look over some boy porn?
Me: Yes. Always.

aaahahah. And then he gave me another one later in the day. The first one had crazy crazy mpreg and animal transformations in it, though. I'M REALLY NOT DOWN WITH THAT.

But yeah... yesterday was my last day, and now I am super, super sad. Like... agh. I can't even express it. It's bizarre. I am just going to miss everyone SO MUCH, and I know they're going to miss me too, and I just had such a perfect summer here and I'm unbelievably depressed about it coming to an end. ;_; wahhh

Based on a conversation at lunch that day (with everyone, in honor of me and fellow-intern Jessica leaving today), I wound up drawing a Fruits Basket fanart picture which will be featured in volume 18, out in November. It's basically me, as Tohru, surrounded by the zodiac... who are members of the TOKYOPOP editorial staff. XD XD ahahaaaaa. I had so much fun drawing it and everyone was cracking up over it because of who we assigned to certain roles (Paul, Tim, & Bryce as the Mabudachi Trio is CLASSIC. ahahahaaa). (It was actually really hard to draw, though, because I haven't drawn anything in foreverrrrr, since I'm not that good at it, and my hand kept getting tired. I HAVE NEWFOUND RESPECT FOR PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS. @_@) So that was my goodbye gift to everyone... <3 And you can be on the lookout for it in bookstores in November!!!

And now I have to pack and it suckssss. But at least Mom and I went to the Getty today, which was successfully relaxing, and tomorrow begins the Epic (okay, 2-Day) Drive back to G-town, and a (lasting) return to my normal life for abouuuutttt the first time since May 2006. Yeah. It's gonna be weird.

I'm back from Comic-Con, and deliberately ending a stretch of drinking every night for 6 consecutive nights. The fact that Comic-Con happened at the end of it is just a coincidence, but haha, I can't believe I did that. That's my personal record *laughing* Anyway, Comic-Con was a fucking blast this year, I'm exhausted but it was so worth it. Yay Tokyopop, yay for hanging out with work people at the bars and at dinners, drinking with EVERYONE, seeing people who left that I hadn't seen since last summer (Carol!!), and meeting OGM creators I hadn't met before (like jou, at last, who is way cool! And Svetlana the Dramacon creator! That's right, be jealous). As well as all the Dark Crystal/Labyrinth manga team (I'd met Jake before, but not the rest)... related to that, a room full of people clapped just for me at the Tokyopop Jim Henson panel (because Tim told the room that two people in the room but not sitting at the panel were involved in the books--me and the toner, also his girlfriend, Jessica. And he had the room clap for each of us). I'm still reeling from that, wtf. And I got my poster signed by them, and books signed by Joanna and Svetlana as well, and collected free things to give to people, and got some presents/favors completed and some manga for myself (Del Rey--I sho am not paying for a Tokyopop book, haha). In the end, I had a lot of fun every single day/night, and it was just badass overall. Like last year, amplified times a thousand. Only with less scanning-room fantasies, and more, er, awkwardness.

I'll write a more detailed report later (no, I promise, I promise!) with pictures (really!) but for now, I need sleep very very badly. I've been going on alcohol and Starbucks food and 6 hours of sleep for way too long now.

Harry Potter!!!!! omg.

I just stayed up til like 3:30 a.m. to finish that damn thing. (Got it at 1 p.m. via Amazon--free shipping and it still came on the day despite their warnings, WHAT NOW BITCHESS--and have been reading on and off since).

Strangely, all I can think of now is how my original goal, begun in February/March, to reread the first 6 first was, in the end, never fulfilled. Despite those few times Mark and I sat in Shakespeare & Company reading their copies of Harry Potter... the disappearance of their copy of volume 1 pretty much put that whole project on hold. Still, those times were really nice when they happened. We just sat there on the beds upstairs reading... ahh, it's nice to have some good friends-related memories of Paris, really.

But I'm okay with not finishing the project, despite its ambitious beginnings. It's weird how the fifth movie prepared you almost completely for it.

Now, I just feel... oddly bereft. ( etc )

I'm also proud of myself for remaining completely unspoiled until I got the book. Everything came as a natural surprise, as it should have. :)

wooowww, it's really over now, huh?

(yep, another late-posted entry. Here it is at last!)
wheee. So AX was this past, well, I'd like to say weekend, but it really stretched out. I took like 4 days off work for it... kinda crazy. I saw S.K.I.N., which means I saw Gackt live, and Anna Tsuchiya, and cosplayed a costume I did not make myself, and hung out with Ash, Michael, Doug and Justin (and Kevin and Airon), and took a lot of pictures, and bought Ouran 9, annnnd yeah. It was pretty good. I've got some complaints, and some BIG doubts about next year, but yeah. Overall, good. :)

( Onward )

In conclusion? A very fun con; great to see and hang out with Ash, Michael, Justin, and Doug, and I think we all had a really good time. The location could have been better, and I have no plans to go next year unless a really good guest is announced (because no way am I dealing with the shitty LA Convention Center it's going to be at, plus I'm disgusted with how AX is run in general, and how it's shifting away from being industry focused to fan focused and has no problem with that) but just this year it was fun, for us. :)

Annnd this is why I'm here and not there. *laughing*

So yeah, I'm finally all moved into Lisa's house, and the nomadic life can end! And: YAY LISA! A friend I haven't seen since Japan! wheeee. We've already watched Strangers With Candy (Stephen Colbert!!!1!!) and purchased a kiddie pool for backyard sunning purposes. And had doner kebab sandwiches. And bought organic groceries at Trader Joe's (you know you're in California when...). IES Tokyo people (I am looking at you, sesamebutter), come visit us!! (Priscilla might! yay!)

Scotland was very fun. hikarisan, thank you for letting me take over your room and sleep in your bed (XD without her in it, pervs). We went to the beach and the golf course (got presents for my dad -_-) and castle ruins and Edinburgh and all sorts of places. Walking on the beach was very fun because no waves attacked me this time, I could just walk around barefoot with my jeans rolled up. It's when you start to actually GO in the water that bad things happen. =_= But yeah, I'll write more about it later when I have pictures.

I must also gloat about how I've discovered a way to get to and from the airport FOR FREE (as opposed to buying a stupid 8-euro ticket each way). mwa haaaa! See, the line that goes to the airport, RER B, has 2 Charles de Gaulle stops, one for Terminals 1 & 3, and one for Terminal 2. This Terminal 1 & 3 one is hideously under-securitized, and that's where you can totally get away with stuff >:D They have NO outgoing AND incoming ticket gates!!! So you don't need to have a proper ticket to get out, and you don't need one to get in. You can seriously just breeze on through and onto the train, which NEVER happens. Now, at the station you either get on or get off this RER line from (for me, it was Gare du Nord), you will need a proper ticket there to get in and out of the RER area, but if you just have a monthly pass, as I do, you can put that in and since you're still in zones 1 & 2 (which is what the monthly pass covers, and the airport is out in zone 5 so it's not usually covered) it totally works. Then you can just get on the train to the airport and since no conductor ever comes around ticket-checking, and since there's no gate to stop you when you get out--IT'S FREEE. :D :D I am brilliant. So when I got back today, I just hopped on the train, used my monthly pass to get out of the RER area, and bammmm it so worked. Since the monthly pass is already expensive, I don't feel bad at all. I've just saved myself 16 euros :D!

I'm also happy about the delicious doughnuts hikarisan bought me before I left, which were soooo gooood but sadly they are gone now, and I don't live in St Andrews so I can't get any more. D: Butterscotch frosting, cream inside. mmmmm :3 Mannn yesterday was like a huge long day of various kinds of public transportation. Let's see... bus from St. Andrews to Leuchars station, 1-hour train ride to Edinburgh, bus to the airport from outside Edinburgh Waverley station, plane to Frankfurt, plane to Paris, RER B, line 4, line 9, AHH HOME AT LAST, at 9 pm. It seriously took the entire day just to return home... but it was fun, I didn't mind. Look at me, all independent, doin' all this all on my own!

OH YES and my passport was stamped which was AWESOME! It hadn't happened yet. Ever. Seriously. (Except for when I arrived in France, of course.) I don't know what's up, but I didn't have to go through customs, like, AT ALL leaving France for Germany and leaving Italy for France. I seriously just breezed on through and out of there. (It does make sense, it's all EU/continental Europe, but still.) But this time, no! Even at the airport in Frankfurt where I had to get a connecting flight, THEY stamped the passport. Then arriving in Edinburgh, they stamped it again too. I had to go in the special "Non-EU members" line where almost no one was (ha ha ha), and fill out a CARD, and then they stamped it and I can stay in Scotland for 6 months if I want to. Which I can't. But it's nice to know I have the option. XD However, they didn't stamp it or check it upon my departure, I guess they don't care who leaves the country. They did again at Frankfurt though. Three stamps!!! *full of glee*

Finals: 2/3 done. Mostly the big thing for me now is finishing my massive history paper, of which I am woefully, embarrassingly behind, but fortunately the exam isn't until 3 pm tomorrow. Still, I am DONE completely with art history and literature (translation had no final) so that's a huge weight off. After Japanese tomorrow night I'll be done with school for quite some time! And nothing can stop me from coming home! wheee

Oh yeah, and I have a new Japanese music obsession now that, much like Spitz, I've been able to acquire the discography. Mai Hoshimura... ahh, amazing. I've had and adored some of her songs for a while now, but I could literally find no more for a really long time. Of course, Jpopmusic.com forums is the perfect enabler, and I was able to get most of her stuff there. yay!! And I'm loving it. aaahhh. Tempted again to open a section of my site for her songs. Curse it being so hard to edit at the moment!! Tokyo Jihen also has a new single coming out this July! woooo, it's gonna be a good music year :)

Today was my second IES field trip, a visit to Giverny, a very small village where Monet's home & gardens are, and where a lot of American painters came around/after the time of Impressionism. It was veeery cool, I loved it. We left by bus in the morning and once we got there divided into two groups. I was in McKenzie and Allie's group that went to see the Musée d'Art Américain (Museum of American Art) first, hosting paintings made by said American artists, which was... interesting, mostly because we had to have this guided tour by this woman who just would go on and on about a particular painting, and even though she had been told we understand French she would keep interpreting what she was saying with an English translation every couple sentences, which got annoying fast. I just wanted to be able to browse freely, and I'm sure we all did too, but nooo, we had to be led around by her. Then, with 15 minutes and a couple more rooms left, she just says "Okay, I'll leave you here!" and those last rooms turned out to be the best ones and we were annoyed that we'd only gotten 15 minutes to look at them because she wouldn't stop going on about stuff!! Ohhh well. It's a very nice museum in any case, I just don't see why we needed the guided tour.

After that it was LUNCHTIME YAY at this restaurant called Les Nymphéas, which means "Waterlilies" (Monet's favorite subject, you'll recall), and it was delicious. A wonderful salad with carrots and hardboiled eggs, then a main course of roasted chicken and fries, then apple tart dessert. It was soooo good. One thing I've gotta say for IES, you do not dine badly when they do the planning!!

And then it was finally time for our group to explore Monet's house and gardens. Which was, of course, AMAZING. Just amazing. There's the main gardens which are in front of his house, which is filled with Japanese woodblock prints (and I mean filled, they cover every surface) and has nice open-looking rooms painted in different colors, and those are wonderful, and then you go under a road outside and you get to the water gardens, where the famous Japanese bridge and the waterlilies are. Oh, I loved it, it is beautiful there, with the weeping willows hanging over the pond. The bridge had a wooden canopy bursting with lavender flowers arching across it; it was amazing. I took many, many pictures. So, so pretty.

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In the gift shop I got a couple of Monet prints for my room next year, and then it was time (before stopping for ice cream at a very cannily located ice cream truck) to go home. As we were driving through Paris, my friends (who live also in the 16th, but in a different section farther away from me) were like "Hey, I recognize this! Can we just be let off here?" and the bus driver actually let us all off there. I got off too, although I had farther to walk from there. But it was a beautiful cool day and I didn't mind the walk at all. I just kept heading for the Eiffel Tower and walked along the river. Finally I got to Passy station on the 6, and it turns out there's this really cool looking pedestrian walkway over by that area...



...then some outdoor escalators that take you up to the station platform. I hopped on that, rode in one stop to Trocadéro, and then walked home from there. Lovely, lovely day.