風邪を引けました

最悪です。

昨日は私の鼻が鼻水になりました。特に、左の鼻孔は影響を受けます。そして、目ヤリが出ります。お母さんは飛行機に引くと思います。でも、今軽い風邪です。（良かった。）

風邪薬は苦い味があります。

今夜は薬屋へ行きました。風邪薬とマスクを買いました。残念ながら、クリスマスにこの風邪があります。早く治したいです～

-wp

ガラガラガラガラガラガラ

日曜日に、９ヶ月で初めてアメリカへ飛びました。 は日本航空のでした。約１２時間に続きました。プレミアムエコノミークラスで飛びました。このクラスの椅子の方は普通なエコノミークラスより大きいと広いでした、そしてもっとレッグルームはありました。

プレミアムエコノミークラスで飛んでいましたので、日本航空の「桜ラウンジ」を入る事許可しました。色々なお菓子と飲み物を楽しました、そして新聞を読みました。ラウンジもゲートのとなりはありました。（とっても便利！）

美味しいお弁当

５０％完成

飛行中に、「Independence Day」と「君の名は」を見ていました。 お弁当はビーフシチュー、そしてその後に数時間に寝ました。 リバーシも椅（自分で）のモニターを遊びました。私は、中程度の難易度でさえリバーシでは上手くいかではありません。

高い、早い、寒い

天気のため多くの乱気流はありました。飛行機はワシントン州を飛ぶとしていたときにガラガラしました。飛行機の前動きの病の丸薬を取りので、病気になりませんでした。しかし、飛行機のガラガラはちょっと怖い感じです。

約9時にニューヨークに 着きました。飛行機から出るの後は、通関を行きました。アメリカの市民ですので、自動キオスクでチェックインする事を出来ます。（写真は禁止でした、すいません）　ターミナルの外に、雇われた車のために数分を待ていました。

帰ってきたの時は、ドアをノックする必要ではなりませんでした。お母さんは外に来ました、そして私に抱擁しました。彼女はずっと泣いていました。お母さんは「９ヶ月でしたので、出産する感じです。」と言いました。ｗｗｗｗｗ　家に入ります、その後で寝ました。自分のベッドに寝る事は素晴らしいでした。（心地よい！）

それで、拡張休みは始めま～～～す！

-wp

He's so far away, come on home...

I'm now at the Narita Tobu Hotel Airport. It's actual the third time that I've stayed at this hotel. The first time I stayed here, it was my first night of being in Japan ever, when I was still touring colleges. The second time, it was the day that I landed to start my time here in Japan for grad school. Now, I'm spending the night here before I leave to go back to America. The facilities here are a bit dated, but it's clean, I booked it at a reasonable price, and it's actually the closest hotel to the airport; on the shuttle bus, it takes about 10-15 minutes for the bus to make its way through the maze of particularly narrow roads to get to the terminal.

No Bibles in this hotel, just a bilingual (English and Chinese) copy of the teachings of Buddha

Tomorrow morning, I'm boarding a Japan Airlines flight and am flying to New York. I'll be going home for about three weeks. It sounds like a very long time to be home, and I'll also be missing the New Year's festivities here. However, a certain worried next of kin who doesn't see the value of a passport wanted me home, especially because I had never been away from home, and her, for so long before. (Next week it will be nine months since I had left home.) But if I'm honest, I'm kind of glad to be going home, too. Though I've almost stopped growing physically, I've still grown as a human being. This year, I bought my own car with my own money for the first time, and a manual no less. I made repairs to it myself and I had it repaired as well. I travelled by myself to a far away place, got stuck, and had to deal with the aftermath, mainly by myself. I went to actual Japanese classes and improved my Japanese from a level of I'm so fucked to I can kind of survive by myself, which is honestly a lot more impressive that it sounds.

Of course, I've had plenty of help from my friends and mentors along the way (Saito-san the mechanic, Nagashima-san the foreign personnel advisor, Kaneta-san/Ono-san/Gunji-san from the wind ensemble, etc.). And yet, at the same time, I feel as though I've finally become an adult. I'm 24 now. Most kids my age, or even younger, work full-time jobs and are already starting their climbs up the corporate ladder. So to summarize, I left home as a "cool college kid ridin' to the beach on his mo'", and now, I'm coming back as an adult. An adult that is still getting financial support from his mother, but an adult nonetheless. And in the words of Neil Peart, when writing the song "Headline Flight", I would never trade tomorrow for today.

Anyways, there's going to be a brief change for this blog while I'm home. I've been updating this blog to serve as a window to my world for the people that I'm leaving behind. The other day, though, I figured that this philosophy can work regardless of where I'm departing from. So in addition to finishing my language learning books from cover to cover, for the next three weeks, I'm going to be updating this blog in Japanese. It's a great way for me to improve my language skills, of which I will especially need to rely on more next year. Those of you at home who want to follow along will unfortunately have to use Google Translate.

Speak of the devil, excuse me for a second.

日本人の方へ：今まで1月7日まで日本語にこのブログを書きます。私の日本語を改善したいです。だから、このブログはよい練習の物です。日本語のブログエントリーを楽しみに！

Okay, now where was I? Oh yes, coming home.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing while I'm home. Most likely, I'll be putting some time into my research, helping out Mom with the foreclosures, and seeing a few family members for New Year's. In the interest of not blowing any more money (my round trip ticket was $3k, ouc- I mean, 痛い!), we don't have plans to go anywhere special. We may take a day trip to New York, but that's about it. To be honest, I don't need the trip. I'd rather be at home spending time with Mom. That in itself is everything that I wanted for Christmas.

Time for bed. Gotta be up and out early tomorrow so that I can clear passport control in time for my flight.

-wp

At least the concrete felt cool

This Saturday, I participated in a "year-end party" hosted by Saito-san. There were actually two parts to this party: the regular party on the second floor of an izakaya and an afterparty at a snack bar in another part of the city. Because I decided to reward myself with a few stiff drinks, I ended up taking a taxi (about $20 USD, yikes!) to the izakaya.

The party was very nice. I got to introduce myself to some of Saito-san's friends. (As a matter of fact, I was actually introduced by Saito-san to the store manager of the same York Benimaru that I went to on Friday night. Small world, isn't it?) The guy who sat next to me drives an R35 GT-R as his daily, a car which I have openly lusted after for a very long time. (His observation: it's really fast!) There was a whole spread of food available, including fried chicken, pizza, motsunabe (a hot pot with pig's intestines, tofu, and vegetables), and a giant bottle of sake brought in by another partygoer. And this doesn't even include the giant boat of fish that the shop owner carried in halfway through dinner. Also part of the evening's activities was a game of bingo, where there were a bunch of prizes and vouchers from Saito-san and his partners' businesses. I won a discounted oil change at Saito-san's shop. Perfect for the spring time when it's time to switch back to summer oil.

Now that's dedication to the craft!

Afterwards, it was time for the afterparty. Some of the partygoers went home, while the rest of us went to the bar on foot. I got the chance to walk through the concentrated, nightlife-oriented part of the city, which to me has a certain Tokyo-like feel to it. Saito-san told me that some of the bars in this area were among the best in the country. He even pointed out one to avoid: a grey, post-modernist building that actually had mob ties to it. (This is probably some important information to know in the future.)

Most, if not all of these, are snack bars.

We arrived at the snack bar, a small room on the third floor of a building that seemed almost entirely dedicated to them. A snack bar, for those of you who don't know what it is, is a rather small place where matrons serve alcohol to customers. This place also had a karaoke machine, and I was amazed at the amount of songs available in English, especially by the band that I knew about. In fact, thanks to some Liquid Courage (TM), I actually went up for four songs. As it turns out, I am especially not a good singer when I'm drunk. But what was especially hilarious to me about the karaoke was the B-roll used for the lyrics. I could tell it was from the 90s, mainly because of the cars, and the fashion. Among the various cars spotted were a C4 Corvette, a Porsche Boxster convertible, and a Jeep Wrangler. It had that low budget, stereotypical feeling of 90s Japan, and I loved it.

Import crusing is serious business.

I wish that I could end this post here. I also wish that I had listened to that little voice in my head that said "okay, that's enough liquor for tonight." Unfortunately, I can't do either. Maybe if I had avoided drinking at the afterparty (it was a few rather tall glasses of whiskey), I probably would've made it home relatively intact. Things started getting bad when my taxi-hailing app said that there was a delay for nearby taxis. I had the person next to me call the taxi dispatch; the taxi would not be coming for another 40 (!) minutes. I ended up starting to fall asleep while waiting for the taxi. Then someone brought over a plastic bag, and that's when my body decided to take the hint. Needless to say, I had to be carried downstairs and into the taxi, which was finally waiting outside.

And then, I had to be carried back out of it.

I don't know exactly why I was taken out of the taxi. Maybe it was because I was too drunk to give directions. Maybe it was because Saito-san was too worried letting me go home by myself. Either way, I was now lying face down on the sidewalk, in front of a snack bar building in northern Japan in December, with a bag in front of my face catching my vomit, unable to even open my eyes to see. Talk about being outside of your comfort zone. The police were apparently called, and I knew the second I heard the word 「救急車」 (ambulance) that my evening was not going to end so well.

With Saito-san and two other friends in tow, I was rushed to Takeda General Hospital, and then discharged in about an hour. My friends helped carry me into my room in Somei House, and I ended up spending my Sunday sleeping and chucking unprocessed liquor. It wasn't until this morning, actually, that I'd managed to actually hold down food. Even now, as I'm typing this, I still feel rather exhausted. Hopefully by the time I get up for work tomorrow, I'll be somewhat better.

So, William, what did we learn? Well, this is the second time I've ever actually been drunk in my life. The first time I got drunk resulted in something similar, except there was no hospital visit involved. This time, however, I had that little voice in my head telling me to stop. And now, I will listen to it from here on out. I hear that young people recover from hangovers faster. Which means that if two days is fast for a hangover, I shudder at what's going to happen when I turn 40. All the more reason to get my shit together.

But seriously, I don't know what would've happened if Saito-san was not there for me that night. Despite us having a limited grasp of each other's languages, this guy not only invited me to his party and had the shop owner prepare a separate dish for me due to my aversion to fish, he actually went in the ambulance with me and carried me a good portion of the way. It's people like him, even in this fucked up world, that I am thankful for. (Actually, I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Guess I don't need a holiday to be thankful.)

And with that, thankfully, it's back to the grind.

-wp

とっても忙しかったです～

(That means I was very busy in Japanese.)

But seriously, it's been rather busy the past few weeks. I've actually been so busy and unable to keep up with the blog that I missed an opportunity to put up a blog post about an onsen trip with my friends. (And that trip was a while ago!) It was a cross between work and school that kept me on my feet. I would be out all day, with the occasional return for food, and I would be extremely tired from work and studying that by night time I just would not be able to focus. My thesis research even took an impact; I was hoping to be farther ahead than I am now.

This past week was the pinnacle of my hectically long days, mainly due to it being the end of the third quarter. I had a thesis research presentation, preparations for a paper presentation at an international conference next week, and a total of three papers due, one that I seriously wouldn't have been able to complete without the help of a classmate due to the difficulty of the material. Between working on said papers and presentation, and actually working, it was a wonder that I managed to survive. I took extra hours in the lab to get everything done, which was very difficult given the constant distractions by e-mail and the responsibilities of being a TA as well.

That being said, tonight was the end. After finishing and submitting the last paper in the morning, assisting with test proctoring in the afternoon, and working during the evening, I was finally done. I have no more major deadlines between now and when I fly home for the holidays. To celebrate this newfound freedom, I took a trip to the York Benimaru in the southern portion of the main city for groceries. I actually put Tackawanna's top down, turned on the heater, put on some eurobeat, and hit up Fukushima Prefecture Route 64, dancing along to the music and guffawing at how I'd managed to survive the week. I haven't even had time lately to go to the store due to my packed schedule, much less go anywhere. In fact, it's been about a month since I last filled up Tackawanna, and I still have half a tank of fuel!

「こんばんは〜」- Tackawanna

It's a huge weight off my shoulders, mainly because of the looming deadlines and their importance for my grades in class. The constant struggle with keeping everything up-to-date and on time was mentally exhausting me. I actually struggled to finish writing that last paper, which is very unusual because writing papers is the best thing that I can do. Not to mention the weirdness of my schedule, where it was hard for me to even keep up with chores. In fact, we had a holiday on Wednesday last week. (It was a one-day holiday, and such a thing is common in Japan, apparently.) I had plans to go to the lab that day, albeit a bit later in the morning. However, it had occurred to me as I was getting ready to shower that I had run out of clean underwear. I was so busy and preoccupied with other things that I now had to wait for the laundry to clean my underwear. Needless to say, I did not go to the lab that day, instead working from home and otherwise semi-relaxing with the constant worry about meeting my deadlines. The laundry machines were practically running for 12 hours straight because of me.

But now, things are going to slow down a bit. I'll still be working three days a week, but the hours will be more consistent. I'll also have more time to work on my research, as I have no classes for the fourth quarter. The wind ensemble and Sound Baccano is playing at the school's Christmas Party in two weeks. And tomorrow, I'll be going to another gathering held by Saito-san, my mechanic. This time, it'll be at an izakaya, and it'll be the first time I've gone out to eat in quite some time. I'll certainly drink to that. (But in moderation, of course. I'll need to drive home.)

-wp