It's been a while! :) Or well, I suppose it's been over a week since I've last posted, and technically it's already the first of october (since it's after midnight and all) but it still feels like the 30th of September, so that's got to count for something... right?

I can't believe that September has come and gone already. Holy crap. Where did it go? I don't understand. This month has absolutely flown by; I've been pretty busy with lesson planning and attempting to cook when I get back home in the evenings. Half the time I end up passing out sometime during the night before I finish everything I want to (*ahem* grad school applications). It's finally gotten cold again as well. I'm looking forward to the cold... but I'm also afraid of it destroying my productivity (again) like last year.

Today I went to this Chinese restaurant in my city with two Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs) and two other fellow JETs who work at the school as one of the JTEs. It was.... interesting. The prawns we ordered were - literally, in Japanese - "prawns and ketchup." It tasted a lot like sweet and sour pork though. A lot of it... was different than the food that I'm used to. But we finally ate Chinese style, sharing a bunch of dishes and splitting it at the end. It even had a lazy susan! Hooray! That made me especially happy. But when I went to order tea at the beginning they were like "really?" and I was like, "yes" and they asked me if cold was alright and I told them... I suppose. Mostly because this seemed the easiest. Seriously though, like, what, no tea with Chinese food? It seemed like a travesty. Not hot tea to wash the grease down? Hmmm...

I'm not sure which region this style was (other than "Japan" haha) but they had fried chicken Chinese style and shrimp tempura. It was.... interesting. I didn't expect to find that in a Chinese restaurant but well, I'm not really in America anymore than I'm in China. What else did we have... mabo tofu. But we didn't have any rice either; that was weird. And we had this Chinese-esque soup stuff. And gyoza. the gyoza was delicious. I'm seriously considering going back there and just ordering gyoza to eat for lunch or whatevs. The rest of it was alright. It was more expensive than I though though. Wasn't really sure if that Chinese food was worth THAT much.

Oh speaking of America, I finally have a plane ticket back home. Hooray! Two of my friends are getting married. It's the weirdest thing. One is my friend from high school. The other is my friend from college; I lived in the dorms and later an apartment with her. Super happy for them both. :) I'm even more excited because I have a good gift idea in mind. And yay, I'm going to be back for Christmas and the day after! Woo woo! After that though, I'm heading off to some place... warm. Like thailand or singapore or something. Or Okinawa. Probably Thailand or Okinawa, where I plan to spend all my money on dive trips. :D Money well spent, in my opinion~

Haha, there's an advertisement for shamwows on TV and the guy is acting like a total tool. I'm kinda impressed because he's actually speaking Japanese though (and he's probably not japanese unless he was one of those white kids who grew up here in Japan). Yeah though...

Ahhhh I need to get my pictures up still. Eventually that will happen. Also eventually, I swear, I will get that stupid newsletter written and sent out. ...along with my grad school apps. I think I just need to sit my self down and just.... work. No distractions.

Oh! I figured out what I want my Halloween costume to be! It involves... making things. So it may or may not turn out well. That is entirely up in the air right now. But if it turns out well (or even moderately alright) I will be incredibly happy.