Well, it certainly has been a while. Since my last post, I have traveled to and from Utah and Pennsylvania, through Portland to Japan, and started school. And now, I'm conveniently connected to high speed internet in the comfort of my mum and I's apartment. A time for celebration, downloading, importing, and posting. Which is what brings me here.

(I really should do some homework...)

As a brief summary, I had a busy, busy summer, connected by a total of thirteen flights. I went to Paris to meet up with my sister, met with the rest of the family in Scotland, flew down to Germany, took a train through Switzerland to Italy, went from Italy back up to Scotland, went to Utah through Canada, went to Pennsylvania to visit my favourite friends, flew back to Utah, and then flew to Tokyo via Portland. If you want details on any specific part of my journey, send me an email. That's been set up properly too!

When I got back, I was greeted by a fabulous new computer (G5 iMac: SCHWEET!) equipt with a 3D atlas with which you can plot routes around the globe. My major paths around the world added up to a total of 24,559.5 miles. The first period of my first day of class, my math teacher gave me extra credit for travelling the fathest during the summer. I've got my scattered life triangle* to thank for that!

*Here's a Saya theory for you. A student's life is divided between three things: school, friends, and family. Although I've got a diluted sense of the latter two here in Tokyo, the main reason I'm here for the next two years is high school. My closest family's base is in Utah and my best circle... square... triangle of friends is in Pennsylvania. For a demanding and spoiled student, that calls for a lot of travel. Which is precisely what I got. Thank you to Mom and Pop for making it possible. And to my late grandfather for paying my tuition. And to my friends for letting me bum around at their houses. And my sister for living in France for a bit and giving us a reason to go to Europe. Too many people to thank, so I'll stop there.

(From this point on, please excuse the use of colon (:) in place of apostrophe ('). This keyboard is really hard to use because it:s set up for Japanese. Dad, is there any chance that you could send over the extra iMac keyboard we had sitting around the house? This one is really driving me up the wall...)

We:re now halfway through the second week of school and things are sailing pretty smoothly. Homework has been done sans sweat (which might change from today) and the amount of work for my five academic courses is nicely balanced over the two day block schedule. Not taking Spanish also helps to lighten the load a whole lot, not to mention the amount of stress placed on me by Señor Psycho. Debate club will start next week, the one and only extra-curricular activity I will probably ever be involved with, so that may change my situation a wee bit, but it only lasts for a couple of months.

Mom and I have almost completely settled into my grandma:s formerly empty apartment. We brought over a bookshelf from my grandma:s house, the computer is connected to the internet and sitting contently on its lovely, new, red desk with a lovely, new, matching, red clip lamp. I:ve started with my tsugaru-shamisen lessons again, which is a nice distraction from school at the end of each week. Surprisingly, I havn:t really forgotten how to play over the summer, so we:re diving in where we left off. As far as I remember...

In closing, I miss everyone soooo much and hope you:re doing well in work, college, high school, or whatever it is you:re doing. Japanese food is great and so are the vegetables. I wish I could share them with you.

Hopefully, I:ll have more to post from now on, and if not, I:ll try to fill this up regularly with random crap. For example, this website that I stumbled upon, which is probably the most entertaining I have seen all month: Celebrities Playing Table Tennis.