I am currently sitting in my room listening to a Japanese jazz CD my Japanese friend Arina made me and I feel so incredibly thankful and grateful and wow, I don't know, glad to be me?
How amazing is it really that I have an awesome family who supports me to come study in a beautiful country so far from home? How amazing is it that I have been given the ability to pick up the language and learn to communicate anew? How amazing is it that I have the opportunity to learn something marvelously new everyday from really cool people? How amazing that I have people that I can call friends here? How amazing is it that I have a place to sleep in a shelter away from the howling typhoon just outside my door? How amazing is it that my friend Kathy and I could walk down the street at 10pm to get ice cream from 7 and i holdings (what 7-11 is called here)? How amazing is it that I get to wake up early tomorrow morning and go attend a cultural day where I will learn how to wear a kimono, all about the tea ceremony, ikebana, and Japanese calligraphy? It's pretty amazing!
Yesterday I was feeling a bit down and my wise friend Daniel told me that one time when he felt that way, he just began to thank God for everything that came to mind. With each utterance of thankfulness, he realized that he was so lucky and so blessed to just be. I couldn't sleep last night and I just spent doing that and...man, I have so much to be thankful for. So very much.
I miss being home where everybody knows my name (I feel a Cheers song coming on). But at the same time, I love this adventure I'm on. I am prone to wanderlust (like your planner, Allie!) and I feel like this is right. I wish you could be here with me, because it's a beautiful thing.
p.s. My cute umbrella that I posted on my last post broke on me twice today. It was very tragic and I got very wet. :(
p.p.s. My newly decorated shoes also got very wet and are now partaking in a drying party with the other shoes in this dorm building. They are by far the whitest shoes of the bunch.
How amazing is it really that I have an awesome family who supports me to come study in a beautiful country so far from home? How amazing is it that I have been given the ability to pick up the language and learn to communicate anew? How amazing is it that I have the opportunity to learn something marvelously new everyday from really cool people? How amazing that I have people that I can call friends here? How amazing is it that I have a place to sleep in a shelter away from the howling typhoon just outside my door? How amazing is it that my friend Kathy and I could walk down the street at 10pm to get ice cream from 7 and i holdings (what 7-11 is called here)? How amazing is it that I get to wake up early tomorrow morning and go attend a cultural day where I will learn how to wear a kimono, all about the tea ceremony, ikebana, and Japanese calligraphy? It's pretty amazing!
Yesterday I was feeling a bit down and my wise friend Daniel told me that one time when he felt that way, he just began to thank God for everything that came to mind. With each utterance of thankfulness, he realized that he was so lucky and so blessed to just be. I couldn't sleep last night and I just spent doing that and...man, I have so much to be thankful for. So very much.
I miss being home where everybody knows my name (I feel a Cheers song coming on). But at the same time, I love this adventure I'm on. I am prone to wanderlust (like your planner, Allie!) and I feel like this is right. I wish you could be here with me, because it's a beautiful thing.
p.s. My cute umbrella that I posted on my last post broke on me twice today. It was very tragic and I got very wet. :(
p.p.s. My newly decorated shoes also got very wet and are now partaking in a drying party with the other shoes in this dorm building. They are by far the whitest shoes of the bunch.
posted by jenchen at 7:41 AM
8 Comments:
shoot... it's been so long, whats your name again? jkkk >:D
stay dry!
haha you ARE lucky!
and i knew that cuteness and quality were often negatively correlated, but you'd think that would be less of a problem in japan, the home of cuteness.
aw, jen i wish i was there too!
it's a gloomy day in berkeley today and yes, it reminds me of you. it rained a few days and
i thought, "jen would be so excited to jump in the puddles!!"
hey ben, that japanese jazz cd sounds awesome! hurry home, we miss you!
g (jessca's dog) is huge now. and he hates me =(
i took some pictures of the moon last night (chinese mid-autumn festival). it was huge and bright, and there were all of these big stormy clouds around it. nice and creepy. did you get to see the same moon? =) (i posted some in my flickr, they're not that good though)
love you!
I HATE RAIN. yuck.
and i wish you would use xanga instead. i keep on forgetting to check this.
Hey Jen,
Keep your stories coming! Haha, you make rain sound so cool.
Hi,
I'm a staff member at Nipponster.com and I'm emailing you because we're interested in helping Japan-related websites like yours (as part of our mission to organize and enhance the Japan-related content available online).
We'd like to work with you to help promote and enhance your site. We have tools and are developing tools to help you (some of which are listed below). All free of charge. Please let us know what you think and feel free to talk to us about it and any other ideas you may have.
1) Nipponster search engine is the Japan enthusiast's search engine. Have you ever felt that it's difficult to find specific Japan related info on general search engines like google? Nipponster makes it possible. And now you can put the Nipponster search box on your own site to Give Your Users Japan-related Search Results.
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-that will but your site before your readers and our users 100% of the time (and make it just a click away)
-give them great Japanese language tools and entertainment (live TV and radio).
We know it is difficult to learn and maintain Japanese. The toolbar makes it easier. You can watch live Japanese TV or listen to radio, listen passively to Japanese lessons via Internet radio while surfing the net and practice flashcards for kana and kanji. And you can listen to what is happening in Tokyo with the metropolis podcast and kook up words and translate text using the Jim Breen and rikai buttons.
To take advantage of these, Check Out http://www.jpnx.com/php_izabi/PHPizabi_0.415b_R3/?L=cms./feedback.partner_form
Looking forward to hearing from you soon,
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p.s. sorry to post this as a comment, couldn't find an email address. By the way, Nipponster.com is run by a group of foreign exchange and international students (current and former) studying at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.
oops. those links didn't show:
Nipponster.com
page with details
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