So I'm pretty much finished with papers and everything. I just need to edit my last two papers and submit them in the next few days and then I'm done with this semester! I'm pretty excited about the spring break. I'm definitely going to Sapporo now for the Snow Festival. The friend I'm going with found a flight/hotel package that was only $300, so that'll be a great time. Besides the snow festival, they have this thing in Hokkaido where you can walk with penguins. I really want to do that, and my friend wants to tour the Sapporo beer factory, so it should be an interesting trip. I also start my job at the kindergarten next week. I went there on Wednesday to find the place, meet the owner and see how the classes are run, and I think it's going to be pretty good. The kids are really cute. I'm teaching three classes, one of 3-4 yr. olds, one of 5-6 yr. olds and one of 7 yr. olds, and none of the classes have more than 10 children. We practice writing letters and words, learn colors, sing songs, play games. The most difficult thing is getting the boys to pay attention and sit still, but I think it'll be a fun job. So I'm pretty excited about that. Well, I have to go try and harass a professor during his office hours in an attempt to find out my mid-term paper grade, then I'm off to see Pride and Prejudice tonight. I hope it's good since movies are so damn expensive here. Peace out.

So in news completely unrelated to Japan, I saw on AOL today that pirates still exist. How awesome is that? I'm seriously contemplating dropping out of school and leading out the rest of my life as a pirate now. Anyway, so things have been okay here. I have finals/papers due this week. I just finished the first half of my Japanese final and part of it was harder than I expected, but I think I did alright. Tomorrow is the grammar portion of the test, so I need to study hardcore tonight. This weekend, it snowed for the first time. I was really excited when I woke up and saw the snow. I went out and took pictures of my neighborhood and neighborhood temple/cemetary in the snow. I posted them on my picture page...very pretty. I also went out for sushi with my host parents and their son-in-law, Makoto. It was fun. Although whenever I go out with them, they always buy me too many drinks and then I can't study afterward. I don't know if I said anything about this on my blog yet, but Minako(their daughter and Makoto's wife) is pregnant and I found out on Saturday night that she's having twins. Apparently in Japan, there's this tradition that when women get pregnant (for the first time at least) they return to the house of their parents and their mother takes care of them before and after the birth. So Minako is coming to live with us today or tomorrow and will continue to live at our house until a couple of months after the birth. I think they probably do that because the men work so much here that they can't really be there to take care of their wives when they're pregnant, so it's better for them to have their mother taking care of them. The babies are coming in May or June, so I'm pretty excited. I've never been around for a pregnancy/birth before. Other than that, I'm planning a trip to Hokkaido. They have a big snow festival in Sapporo in February with lots of ice sculptures and activities centering around snow. It should be pretty fun if we can still find a hotel. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. Also, I have another job now, besides the kindergarten one. I'm writing practice questions to help people prefer for an English exam (basically their version of the TOEFL), I get paid about $30 for each one I write, and they're pretty fun/easy to do. So that's good. Well, I hope everyone is well in America. Peace.

Hey everyone! Well, it's almost finals time here, so my first week back wasn't too much fun as a result. I have three 10-pg. papers to write for 3 of my classes and a 3-day long final for Japanese, but one of my paper's is done and another one is started, so the stress is lessening. Now I just need to go over about 120 kanji before my Japanese test, because I feel like I've forgotten half of them. Anyway, so last week I pretty much just studied, caught up on what I'd missed and worked on papers. I was actually feeling more homesick than I ever have been here. I guess because I felt like my time in America was so short and I wasn't really having much fun back in Japan cause of all the work I had to do. Friday night, however, I did go out. I went out with the people from my foreign policy class who I like to refer to as "the international friendship coalition." We went to an Asian restaurant called Cha Cha (which was really tasty) and just sat around talking for a hours. Then we went to an izakaya (bar/eatery) and got a drink before heading home. It was really nice to just sit around with my friends and have good conversations, it reminded me of why I liked being here so much the first 3.5 months and made me feel less homesick. So I'm not so homesick anymore. Amazing what one night out can do. Then on Sunday, one of my Japanese friends e-mailed me. Apparently her mother runs her own kindergarten and she needs someone to teach english to the kids, once a week for 2 hours. I'm really excited about it cause I think it'll be really fun to work with the kids, just teaching them basic english plus I get paid about $55 for only 2 hours. Aoi (my friend) said the hardest part is just getting them to be quiet and listen to me. So I'll have to practice saying kitte kudasai and shizukaninarimasu(listen and become quiet) in a strict voice. :-) I don't know exactly what the curriculum will be or how many kids I'll be teaching, but I'm going out there on Wednesday to meet her mom and see the class, so I'll find out then. Then I have more than a week to prepare anything I need to prepare cause I don't start until February 1st. Sarah and I started planning our trip to Kyoto on Sunday too. We found a hostel we can stay in for only $25(each) a night. It's called the Backpacker's hostel or something, I know it sounds kind of hippie European, but it looks clean and got a good rating, so we will see. I may come back from the trip smelling like marijuana. I'm pretty excited about it though, we're going down there for 4 days and are going to try and see a lot of historical and cultural things like famous temples and castles while we're down there. I'll be sure to post pictures. Well, I have to get back to the studying now, but I miss you all and hope everyone is well in the US, Rome or whereever you are.
P.S.-on Friday night, after I went out with my friends, I was at the train station around 11:30 (when people are taking the drunk trains home) and I saw 2 Japanese guys get in a fight! There was an older guy who looked like a conservative salaryman type, and a younger teenage guy who looked kind of punkish and like he was into American hip-hop culture and they were both drunk. Well the younger guy bumped into the older guy and the older guy turned around and started yelling at him. Then the younger guy said something to him that sounded really vulgar and the older guy pounced on him, trying to hit him and push him down the stairs. They were yelling and fighting each other for a good minute or so before people were able to break them up. I really got the feeling that it was a generational conflict gone violent, like the older man didn't think the younger guy was giving him enough respect and the younger guy didn't think he should have to respect the older man just because he was older and professional-looking, so they fought. Not the ninja fight with numchucks that I was hoping for, but pretty exciting nonetheless.

I'm safely back in Japan now. I was really glad I was able to go home for Christmas and it was great to see everyone that I saw! I'll write more later.