heres a brief overview of what i’m doing the next 4.5 months:

jeremy is in japan! 

kelsey comes to japan! march 14-24

nicole comes to my neck of the woods! march 18-26

jordan comes!  march 22-26

i go to korea to visit kate! march 30-april 6

my family comes to japan! april 13-28

i go to visit nicole in northern japan! may 2-6

i go home to megan’s wedding (hopefully!) june 14-24 

in between all that i have many fun weekends, like: camping on the beach, camping in the mountains,  naoshima (artist community island), mizushima (beautiful island beach), going to the german theme park, learning buddhist meditation at eiheji, and hopefully going to okinawa (southern most islands in japan), + visiting other cities/places ive never been, etc…

i have 4.5 months to accomplish this. i cant believe how fast this is flying by!

and i am so happy lately because spring is in the air! some days i can wear a light jacket or sweatshirt. and i go on bike rides again! and i opened my windows and doors for the first time the other day. i love the first time you open your windows to spring!! 

today i left school early because i wasnt accomplishing anything at my desk. i had one class, but when i didnt have anything concrete to concentrate on, all i could do was be sick and miserable at my desk. it was probably one of those times when i should have been wearing a face mask- as most japanese people do when they are sick- but no thank you to that! 

i slept most of the day and I feel a lot better- im trying to be 100% by friday when kelsey comes! party time!

i’ve been studying japanese like crazy because ive had a lot of free time at school. so thats uplifting. funny thing is, when you study a lot, you really understand a lot more. hahaha just imagine how far along id be if i had been studying japanese every day for 4 hours instead of like 3-4 times a week for one hour or less. let this be a lesson to me. 

i also had my first experience at a japanese doctor’s office because i did something to the tendon in my foot. they gave me these magical flesh colored sticky pads that i put on my foot, and they make my foot feel so much better- amazing! it smells like medicine and i dont really know what it is, which is kind of creepy. other then that, my supervisor came with me so it wasnt difficult. i had a huge piece of sock fuz stuck to my toe which was embarrassing/really funny for some reason. we all had a good chuckle. and the doctor kept on looking in medical books that had english translations of the names of all the tendons in my foot, expecting me to know the medical lingo for all my tendons. uhhhh 

i also went to possibly the most fun/amazing festival ive been to in japan (and one of the best things ive done in my life) called omizu okuri. it means water sending. a long long time ago… the gods had a meeting in nara, and the god of my prefecture was late because he was hunting or something. so to make up for the fact that he was late, our prefecture has been sending water to nara since then. (i think) supposedly my prefecture’s water is some of the cleanest in japan. (they write that every where).  the festival is very very old (older than the US- which always puts things in perspective) , and it shows. it was so beautiful. the outfits the monks and priests wore were amazing. it was all very magical. when i come back to japan, i will come for this again…