pollen-pollen-pollen... lol

I have been negligent... I haven't blogged anything for March yet!

Well, suffice to say, I've been catching up on my reading. (novels, that is - strictly fiction)

After my trip to Awaji with my classmate I went twice to the cinema (to watch Benjamin Button and Changeling), and, well, besides reading, I've been working on my scrapbook! (^^)

It's a Work in progress haha~~


Pictures from OUFS - Graduation in March 2006


Ta-da~~ I made it so I can flip them open like an onion haha. So I can either add more pictures or write a message (^^)


I dug some of these old pictures out when I was putting order in my closet haha


Mixing up the old experiences with the new ~~ haha I'm not using a particularly chronological order but by one theme or another... well, I'm not particularly arranging them in any semblance of order LoL (I should think my scrapbook should reflect -me- hahaha)


Of course I intend to include the concerts I went to... though come to think of it they were mostly either traditional Japanese or one of those choir-concerts... ...


And I bought a polaroid camera (finally!!!) just for this!!


LoL - I love making it so the pictures flip open to a message of sorts haha...

Okay - so now you see how I've been occupying myself. I hope to be able to show it around one day!!

Sakai- class trip

Phew. I've just arrived home from a trip with my classmates.

There are yearly winter and summer trips for this particular class that I'm taking, and as usual I participated. The Winter trip is usually for the 3rd year students - who have to prepare a kind of framework for the dissertation that they (I) have to write.

I barely slept on Monday and Tuesday and only barely finished an outline at about 2 in the morning the day we all had to go. I'm still fuzzy on my topic but it will be something to do with relief operations. (Like humanitarian aid/intervention, the ICRC, Medecins Sans Frontieres etc)

Our trip this time was to Awaji (the island- which is by the way, a first for me). Of course, as per 'tradition' it is an onsen trip so we had access to hot springs but a relatively nice view of the beach. The bus we took from Sannomiya barely took an hour and a half. We left at almost 11am and so arrived a little after 12 noon. I'm not sure if it's the weather, the bus or the roads there but I was car/bus-sick for almost the whole way that I could barely walk straight after getting off the bus.

After arriving, we had an hour break for lunch before proceeding to the meeting room (which was actually a very fancy-like mini-hall that completely overwhelmed me). There was a podium and a microphone and everything! It was just a little too much for the 12 of us (oh, that was 5 3rd year students including me, 6 2nd year students and the professor) - so we rearranged the tables to a big rectangle and made ourselves comfortable. 4 hours straight (well, there was a 10-minute break in between) for the presentations - approximately 30-45mins per student. I was so embarrassed in the beginning because I only had one sheet of A4 to give out as a handout whilst the others mostly had an A3 sheet... twice of what I had managed to prepare. BUT! It turned out much better than expected. As usual my extremely kind professor summarised everything I wanted to say and gave me due corrections and even sorted out what I should be doing next. (T.T) I'm always forever grateful to him. The others gave excellent plans for their own topics as well.

When the presentations ended we had some time to spare before dinner so we all decided to go and take a dip in the hot springs. I'm getting fairly used to the hot springs now, though I still cringe at the fact of the need to strip whilst amongst complete strangers. Anyway. I went out with my host family (the one I hadn't met in 3 years) just last week, and they took me (and Bolor) to a public bath house that had a rotenburo (outdoor spa). -The hotel in Awaji also had the rotenburo (woot!)! It's probably about on the list of my favorite activities whilst here in Japan. The rotenburo (outdoors, as I mentioned before) can be quite challenging to reach (seeing as we have to step out to the cold outdoors, it still being winter here). But there is definitely some pleasure in being outdoors in the cold while sitting inside a huge bathtub (sort of) - full of hot, steaming water, looking over towards the sea and hoping for the clouds to disappear so we could catch a glimpse of the stars... which we couldn't. But that still doesn't ruin the appeal of the rotenburo to me.

Anyway. Dinner was very traditionally Japanese. I even managed to finish half my plate of sashimi before giving the rest to someone else. I'm good with sashimi - but to 100% okay with it just yet. Nami and Yukichi (the other 3rd yr girls) and I went back to take on the rotenburo again for an actual bath after dinner - afterwhich we rejoined the whole group to what is probably the main event of the trip - the night entertainment. Last year we the 2nd yr students cooked up a quiz - something the 2nd yr students this year decided to hold as well. Only after the quizzes- there was another session Bakuro-taikai. Basically everyone had a list of questions prepared before-hand that had to be answered. Most of the questions had to do with romance, relationships etc. ...Last year we all stayed up till 5 in the morning talking, but this year everyone was so tired that we all ended up sleeping at around 2am instead. Which was great because some of the other girls and I had decided to go and use the rotenburo again to watch at least the sunrise. Well. We were half an hour too late but it still felt good.

The next day (today), we had planned to go to a museum but then cancelled it in favour of going strawberry-picking! We went to a place called England Hill, a farm-park where we made a bee-line towards the strawberry-picking area. It was a whole load of fun going around. We also went to play with the sheep (lol) and then went off to look at the koalas and parrots etc etc. We were hanging around a flower garden when suddenly everyone just sat down and did not move for some time. It was obvious that everyone was getting tired. So we all decided to get a move on and just go back to Sannomiya.

We arrived at 4.30pm and, well, seeing as everyone slept on the bus back - most of them wanted to go back. Whereas Shino, Asami and I went around and did a little shopping. I think we spent nearly an hour looking inside this shop called Lush with all their bath-related goods. We even hovered over this place that gave free facial-pack samples and tried quite a few ourselves. I think I may have bought my first ever facial-pack. I think I may be trying it for the first time... very very soon. LoL. It was 6pm by the time we felt like going home... to which point I dragged them to a tea and jam store hahaha... I even bought some myself. I loooove mix-berry jams. Then, we finally got really tired and so decided to just head back home.

Which leaves me to where I am now. Haha...

Well. I thought that I'd just write about what I've been doing. It does seem as though I haven't done anything like this recently.

Anyway. Here's to a peaceful slumber-filled night.

I hope that annoying dog that my neighbour has doesn't start barking it's mad little head off tomorrow morning because I really need sleep. I don't think I've ever felt as murderous towards anything as that stupid dog. And maybe its owner.

Mamma Mia!

Well. Since the movie was finally out - Bolor and I went to watch it!

I admit I was extremely apprehensive and skeptical at first but it turned out to be embarrassingly good!

Tomorrow I'm going to meet up with my host family - I haven't seen them in 3 years!