The One Month Marker

Well, I have little less than a month left and finals are on the two week horizon. I've written up a bunch of blog entries in advance for this and have set the blog so it'll automatically post while I'm rushing around in a headless chicken frenzy. It's going to be a busy month!

This week is the infamous Golden Week--a set of national holidays in Japan that are close set to each other and often result in a lot of traveling for the Japanese. To celebrate this, I'm going camping with my host family! We're not really roughing it, there's a bungalow involved, but my host family has never heard of s'mores.

I'll pause to let you have your moment of horror.

So, they don't have graham crackers in Japan, so I went to a nearby (read: Kyoto, 1/2 hour away by train) foreign import store where I bought "Graham Cookies"--crushable wafers to make graham cracker crust for pies. Someo f them are badly crushed, but I'll make due. If all else fails, I'll try to finagle some sort of s'more pie over the coals or something. In case that fials, I also bought some flat, thin gingersnaps that could work in a pinch.

My Goals for May:

• Study to get the best grade possible on my finals
• Back all of the sumi-e that I want to keep
• Start a scrapbook with all the mementos I've been collection so I don't have to send a huge folder home
• Send stuff home
• Sort through stuff (before sending it home) and figure out what to keep and what to give/throw away
• Take more pictures! 
• Manage to get home safe and sound
• And through all of this, keep the blog going!