As is becoming a habit, I'll offer my apologies as an introduction.

The rest of winter break went very well. Christmas and New Years were pleasant. The food continued to be excellent and the month went by very quickly. I returned to the States with half-a-suitcase full of food, snacks, candy, and drank, which I am working through. Quickly.

The journey from Tokyo to school was pretty exhausting. My Chicago layover was, as many Chicago layovers are, hellish. I arrived in Harrisburg in the evening, very delayed, only to find that my luggage was still in Illinois. This interfered with our plans to drive me to school on Saturday morning. Dad and I went home and I slept, woke, slept, woke, slept, and woke, showered, ate, and learned about plans to meet up with the luggage delivery man in a tiny town on our way. The rendezvous was a success and we got to campus in the evening. Dad slept a little before leaving in the early, early morning.

I suffered from pretty severe jet-lag the first couple of weeks back. All of my classes were going well, with the exception of one: High Middle Ages, which we started with broad, unstructured discussions about primary sources like the Bible, Plato's Timaeus, and Aristotle's On the Soul. When I was told to write an 8-10 page paper arguing that war can be just based on what we'd read, with zero historical context and zero direction, I had a miniature panic attack and quickly decided to cut-and-run. After withdrawing from that class, my academic life has been stress-free. I'm especially loving CD 1 and its professor, which is wonderful, since I've been planning to concentrate in Communication Design since getting here. With my free time, I've been trying to do some extracurricular work; for myself, poster competitions, family members, etc. Soon, I will get around to redesigning this blog. My professor (who I imagine will soon be my advisor) also invited me to be the peer mentor of her freshman seminar next semester, which I'm really excited to be a part of.

While academics haven't been stressing me out, I've been on an emotional roller coaster for the last month or so. The intermittent signs of springs are probably to blame, but I've been tackling my issues as they surface, on my own and with the help of a school-funded therapist. It's been pretty exhausting, but I'm taking this all as a sign of transition and progress. Hopefully, by the time spring stops being a soft bitch and decides to stick around, I'll have a more solid understanding of myself, my fears, and my relationships to other people and won't have to go through this again next winter.

This time next week, I will be in Ohio with my lovely sister. I'm looking forward to getting away from campus for a little, especially as this dreary weather persists. C'MON, SPRING!