Also, I moved into my condominium yesterday! ^_^ I’m living with my friend/work manager Emily, as well as three Korean guys: Hyung-su (28), Jae-hoo (21), and our supervisor, who is in his 30’s or 40’s…and his name escapes me atm because we call him Vilencia for some odd reason. I’m sharing the master bedroom with Emily, as the men have the two smaller rooms. The master bedroom has a nice walk-in closet as well as its own bathroom (very spacious with two sinks, yay), and then we all share the living room and kitchen. There’s a 2-car garage and a private little back yard. Last night was rough because it was my very first night of not living with my parents as well as being more than 10 minutes away from Jesse (besides when I was in Japan haha), but I woke up this morning feeling a bit more optimistic about it. Emily spends much of her day in the office, doing company work, so I have a nice amount of privacy me time.

My laptop is still at Jesse’s because I don’t have a desk or anything to put it on yet, so I’ll only be able to update from my netbook, which doesn’t have Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop to resize images and such. Most of my entries will be kind of boring and photo-less until then. Sorry~~!~ ♥

Books for my Japanese and History of Modern China classes.

Books for my Intro to Asian Art, Economic Development, and Political Systems of East Asia classes.

Altogether, those textbooks were $415.00. And with the exception of the Japanese class books, they were all USED books. Gah. College, why must you be so expensive?! And this was actually my cheapest semester yet, book-wise. I’m just glad I’m not in the business or medical fields…I’m sure they have it so much worse. ;O;

Anyway, I figured I’d do a quick post on how I feel about my classes so far.

Political Systems of East Asia - I didn’t know what to expect from this class, because the subject is only moderately interesting to me, and my World Politics professors in previous years had been kind of boring. The professor for this class, however, is quite entertaining. He’s enthusiastic about the subject and he cracks a lot of jokes. I like his energy because this is my first class of the day, and normally it would be difficult for me to stay awake.

Intro to Asian Art - This is an Art History class. We’re covering Japan, China, and India, but mostly focusing on China. We’re going to get into the social, political, etc. context that produced the art. I had considered going for art as a major, so I’m enjoying the subject so far.

Japanese I - I had the option of taking Japanese I or Japanese III this semester. I was quite confident that on a speaking/listening level I would have been fine taking Japanese III, but since I don’t know many kanji, I decided to opt for Japanese I. I assumed that since this was a college-level course, it would move fairly quickly. I was quite wrong. We’re only going to learn the hiragana and katakana writing systems in this course. I learned both wayyy back in 9th grade, when I taught myself. I talked to the professor (in Japanese, too) after class about my concerns about this course being too easy for me, and she talked with the director of the department to try to get me into Japanese III. However, my Art History class is at the same time as Japanese III, so I’m stuck in level I. *sigh* Oh well, at least it’s an easy A. I already did all of my assignments for the semester. >_>

Economic Development - One of my minors is in Economics (my other one is History), so I’m really liking this class. The professor has a very strong accent, though, and it’s hard to understand him.

History of Modern China - I’ve had the professor years ago for my Introduction to History class, and I really liked him. China is his specialty, so he’s REALLY enthusiastic and energetic about this. My only complain is all the reading we have to do. XD

I think this is going to be my best semester yet.

I move Saturday morning, so once I’m all settled in, I’ll start blogging again.

Sorry if I kind of jump around with this entry. There’s just so much going on lately that my head just doesn’t know what to do! XD

I still feel jet lagged. I took off from Pittsburgh at 6:30AM EST June 8th, and landed in Hokkaido at 8:45PM JST June 9th. Altogether I had about 25 hours of travel. I’ll be honest, it kind of sucked. Normally I like travelling, but I didn’t sleep OR eat the night before, so by the time I reached Canada I had the most horrible headache. I was too afraid to sleep at the airport because I was afraid of losing my purse. I managed to sleep a few times during the 13-hour flight to Narita, but not for long. My headache was still there. D: When I reached my gate at Pittsburgh international airport, I saw a United Airlines plane and panicked because the flight I purchased was through Air Canada. I figured maybe it just got changed since they’re both Star Alliance, and everyone around me was flying Air Canada as well. When it was time to board, they took us downstairs instead of through the gate door. I was like…WHAT?! The United Airlines plane was so big and inviting, I was excited to ride on it! But no, we go outside and there’s this tiny, TINY little airplane that looked so old and worn. I’m not even kidding. It was noisy, too. I couldn’t sleep. Altogether there were 15 people on the plane. Most of the people that were at the gate with me must have been waiting for the NEXT flight, the one that was actually United Airlines. The ride was surprisingly smooth, though…but I’m still not looking forward to taking that plane back to Pittsburgh. XD

There were so many non-Japanese at the gate to my flight to Narita. It surprised me because there weren’t many on Jenn’s flight. I talked to a few of them and they thought I was from Canada. o.O There was a Cherokee man that somehow recognized that I’m a halfie. I said “Siyu! Oshigotsu?” or “Good day! How are you?” in Cherokee, and he was so impressed. I mostly talked to this one boy from Hungary. He was about my age and was going to visit his boyfriend in Tokyo! XD So cute! We still had two hours until it was time to board the plane, so we went upstairs and had some drinks (he paid, too! so nice of him)!

I was scared when I reached Narita, because that was the point where I had no contact with anyone. My American cell phone wouldn’t work, so I had no way to reach home or Jennifer. However, I lucked out and the flight that was departing at the gate just before mine was a flight to Okinawa - and a flight full of American navy men. I went up to them and asked one if he had a Japanese cell phone, which he did. I was able to send a quick email to Jenn (though I ended up typing in the wrong email address haha). Anyway, it still gave me a small bit of comfort. I was just one of about three foreigners on the flight to Sapporo/Chitose. Everyone was staring at me. O_O But when I looked back at them, they smiled. The old guy that sat next to me on the plane greeted me with a booming “HARRO! WELCOME TO JAPAN!” XD It was so cute. People were so curious about why I was visiting Hokkaido at the time of the year, as most tourists just go to see the Sapporo Snow Festival.

I managed to sleep during the Narita - Chitose flight, but it was less than two hours long! Jenn met me at the aiport and we like danced and hugged. We were so happy. The Japanese man waiting next to us was laughing and smiling, too. She then drove me back to her house. I learned that one cool thing about Hokkaido is that you you can drive and park on the sidewalks. I’m not kidding! It’s so odd to me haha! But it’s stricly a Hokkaido-only thing.

We stopped at the konbini and got some onigiri and tamago to take back to her apartment. I was so amazed by how they’ll heat it up for you there. The men dressed as women on tv didn’t amuse me nearly as much as the fact that you can get your food heated up for you at the store. XD It’s always the little things with me, haha. I crashed at about 10PM and didn’t wake up until 8AM. I spent the morning figuring out the shower (lol) and then Skype-ing with Jesse while IM’ing my mom. I crashed again at around 11AM (jet lag SUCKS) and woke up at around 3:30, when Jen got home from work. She then showed me around her town, Atsuma-cho. It’s such a cute, small town. Everyone is so friendly. When we were walking down the sidewalk, people would actually slow down in their cars to look at us. It’s cool but embarrassing at the same time. I took some photos, and then we went to the grocery store. I bought some vanilla ice cream mochi. I eat green tea ice cream mochi every day at work, so trying vanilla was cool. I still prefer green tea, though! We went home and had dinner while watching an Arashi TV show, and I crashed soon after. I slept for 13 hours this time! O_O It’s 11:05AM right now. At home, I would still be in bed (then again, I would also have gone to bed at 4AM lol).

Yesterday was actually Jenn’s birthday, but she was at work and I was still so lagged that we didn’t do anything else. Her friend Yuki dropped off a birthday present. ^^ It was an Arashi DVD. Jenn LOVES Arashi! I want to buy her a present when we go to Sapporo, even though she keeps telling everyone that my visit is her birthday present! XD

I think we’re going to meet up with Yuki this afternoon, and maybe go out to dinner. I’m not sure yet. I’m starting to get tired again, so it’s hard to think.

I hate jet lag!!!