I'm so sorry. You deserve better.

Thanksgiving is probably the best place to start. On Tuesday evening, I got a ride to the city with freshman-friend George who, coincidentally, was giving a ride to three other half-Japanese folk. He dropped me off around Columbia, where I met up with Patricia. I put my stuff in her room and then met some of her friends, who were having an Autumn celebration party. After drinking some super-spice-filled cider, we headed downtown to meet up with Julien, a gaggle of his high school friends, Raf, Schrive-cat, and Mack. Patty and I each got a drink and were introduced to Julien's crew before wandering to a different, more classy establishment that had delicious senbei snack mix. Eventually, everyone but three of Julien's friends (John, Bill, and other-Mack), Patty, and I had gone home. The five of us headed to Mack's home, where we sat on the roof, drank beers, and then threw the cans at M. Night Shyamalan's uninhabited penthouse.

Earlier on in the evening, Bill pulled the strangest pick-up line ("Someday, I'm going to hate you. I'll find things I don't like about you after we have a two year relationship.") and, over the course of the night, we imagined a really bizarre future for ourselves (involving cerebral palsy and commuting, among other things). We shared a sloppy kiss at the end of the evening, which was strange for generally not-so-spontaneous me. But, sadly, it remains the most exciting thing to happen to me in a while. Patty and I took the train home and hit the hay. HARD.

The next morning, I said goodbye to Patty before she went to class. In the afternoon, I caught a bus home, where I arrived in the evening. Dad picked me up and we went grocery shopping for Thursday's feast.

Thanksgiving morning, we met up with friends to climb Mt. Nittany and then returned to the house to prepare for our 15 guests. Dinner was not only delicious and huge but a lot of fun.

On Friday, after spending a relaxing day at home, I went to Michelle's. We went to her friend Lee's apartment for some homemade pizza. I got unexpectedly and embarrassingly intoxicated but had a lot of fun. I also lost my hoodie (which has since been found, thank goodness). I drove home on Saturday morning, only to drive back to town to interview a friend's dad for a school project, drive home to get dad, and drive into town again for dinner with Michael, Elizabeth, families, and friends.

I left on the Chinatown bus early Sunday morning and hung out with Patty in the rainy, rainy city until my bus for Albany left in the evening. In Albany, I waited on the street for David to pick me up. His flight was delayed and I ended up standing around for about an hour and a half. It was strange and cold. There was a lady waiting with her kids for "a friend" to pick them up. After thirty minutes of waiting, a van screamed up to the curb (drunkenly?) blasting R. Kelly's "Sex in the Kitchen," which turned to "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" as the five-year-old-and-younger kids piled in and the fat white lady friend tried to cram all of their belongings into the trunk of her van. No matter how many times she slammed the door down on their stuff, it didn't seem to want to move. Albany: Great place full of great people.

The weeks after Thanksgiving were pretty hellish. The first week, I had a group project an paper due, the next week, a capstone project for both Drawing and Form and Space. Everything went pretty well, but the stress of all of them combined was tangible. The weekend before finals, I went to a show where Jon's band, Zombies Did It, were playing, hoping to let off some steam in the mosh pit. Unfortunately, a drunk, asshole, jock giant joined in with the intention of hurting people, throwing giant elbows that landed on my skull and left forearm. After he significantly cleared the pit, I yelled at him. But the damage was done. The next day, my arm was swollen and unusable and, while I was trying to hang things up for my Drawing portfolio review, someone pointed out to me that I was incapable of pinning pieces straight. I wrote a paper that I thought was pretty good until I read over it and realized that it made no sense. My two written finals went pretty well, but my arm got incredibly stressed out.

After my final final on Tuesday morning, Tyler gave me a ride to Albany where I boarded a bus to New York City. There were shady, drug-related dealings in the seat in front of me and a girl on a cellphone worrying about an unwanted pregnancy behind me. Again, Albany: Great place. In the city, I had too much stuff and not enough time to do much except grab some food and wait around in the snow. The bus ride to Pennsylvania was slowed down by the crappy weather. The bus' windshield wipers also broke about half-way home. We arrived much later than expected to the shittiest driving conditions. Dad picked me up and we spent the evening in the kitchen with the cats, enjoying the heat of the woodstove.

Wednesday was similar. I sat in the kitchen all day–knitting, reading, enjoying the company of felines, eating peanut butter and drinking beer–before Dad came home from work and we sat around together.

Thursday morning, we left the house at around 3:40 AM for Harrisburg. Two-thirds of the way there, the check engine light started blinking. We pulled over, only to find that the engine had spat out a spark plug. We plugged it back in, crossed our fingers, and kept driving. About ten minutes away from the airport, the engine started making familiar, weak, sputtery noises, but we ignored it, parked, checked in, and rushed to our gate with five minutes to spare. All of our flights were on time and we made it to Tokyo without any trouble. I watched WANTED (a few times) on the final leg and loved it more than I should probably admit.

Since getting here, I've been slowly recovering from jet-lag, buying lots of things, and eating tons of awesome food. On Sunday, Mia and I met up with Wes and Park for ramen lunch and exploring before we sent Wes away on the Narita Express, back to the US. On Monday evening, Park came to the house where we watched Wall-E, ate dinner, and then went to Shibuya to see an awesome concert.

The first act was a lady from Osaka with a guitar and a man with a saw, cello, power drill, and power buffer. The second was a one-man act called Ichi, who was AWESOME. He used a typewriter, trumpet, steel drum, party poppers, language instruction tapes, crazy voices, and balloons, among other things, to play playful, short, hilarious, and fun songs. I was laughing during the whole thing. The headliner was Shugo Tokumaru and his (gigantic) Magic band. The music was really fun. Mia bought some CDs.

After the show, the three of us wandered across Shibuya to check if a store was open, got some techno-kebab, and snuck into a hotel to see the crazy crossing from their glass elevator. We said goodbye to Park, who was heading to Hong Kong and Cambodia the next day, and headed home.

That's it, for now. I've been spending tons of money and enjoying it thoroughly. It's so easy to be a consumer in this city.