Ohisashiburi!

...which, I believe, means it's been a long time!

One of the reasons for this is that on the day of my last blog entry, my computer got stuck on an update and completely stopped working for a few days, until a classmate to whom I will be eternally grateful fixed it for me. It's back up now, all nice and updated too, and I didn't even have to pay anything!

Last week I flew to Oahu to stay with my grandparents over Thanksgiving break, which was wonderful - there was lots of food and fun things we did together, and I also had my own bedroom and bathroom!!! I didn't have to share at all!
Apparently half of the school also went to Oahu. I left Wednesday, skipping a day of classes, and there were still at least 5 other students that I recognized in the airport that morning. My roommate and a whole group of exchange students all went and stayed in Honolulu to go shopping during Black Friday. And I... did not plan to, but forgot to cram my swimsuit in my single carryon bag in a move of extreme intelligence, so we ended up going shopping after all.

And I got to go to Costco! That was even more exciting!

So this week, my wonderful professors assigned me an 8-10 page paper on Monday, a Linguistics presentation on Tuesday, a 5 page paper on Wednesday, and a Japanese project today. It got a little hairy, but I was able to finish it all.

Now I just have the sinking feeling that I am supposed to be doing SOMEthing, but I have no idea what it is. Aside from signing up for classes, which is difficult because I have now decided to minor in Linguistics as well as Agriculture. And one of my Linguistic classes now conflicts with chorus. It's kind of upsetting, but I don't know what to do about it.
It doesn't help that my Linguistics teacher is super enthusiastic and helpful and accommodating to my major... I really want to take chorus! We'll just see how things go. 

But since today was our last class project in Japanese, we had a potluck! So after all of our terrifying conversational attempts, we got to eat food! I decided to make mochi. Three batches of mochi. Only two survived, and the rest turned out a little funky, but people told me they tasted okay... I don't know if they were just being nice, but I know it was perfectly edible, at least.

I do realize now why more people don't make their own mochi. It's sticky. And nearly impossible to clean without injuring oneself. It also gets very hot, and then sticks to you and won't come off as it burns your fingers...

I think that sums up the recent Hawaiian adventures. It's coming up to the end of school really fast, and then finals, and then going home, and then Christmas! Everything is happening so fast!!!

Tonight is our very last hula practice, which is so sad! Hopefully I'll be able to get the last two verses down, otherwise I'll be stuck forever... but I do have a lovely new hula skirt from Oahu. It's really fun to dance in.

じゃね!