Bats

The posts are piling up. One per day! Didn't think I'd be posting this often. I'm assuming they'll thin out soon enough once life settles into a routine.

I am going to make a whole post all about my work but I will save it for another day because I want to upload the pictures I took of my schools first.

Today was the first day I felt brave enough to listen to music in the car as I drove to and from school. I use a little tape-player-tape-thing to play my iPod, but either because the tape thing sucks or because my car is from 1999, the quality sounds like what comes out of a dinky cell phone. And every time the road curves or I make a turn, it skips. But it's better than nothing so I'm happy. :)

Tonight, I went for another little walk around my neighborhood. I decided to follow the river south instead of north this time. It was dusk, but not too dark yet, and I was happy to find a path that led me down to a little park by the river. It was adorable, and I sat by the river a while, watching it flow. However, that's when things started to get creepy. Walking along, I continuously felt like I was walking into cobwebs, like I felt little strings or fibers on me. I also kept feeling like little gnats or mosquitoes were in my face. There were these random weird-flying small birds swirling around the area. A lot of them. I also saw a hobo pulling his underwear up from where he had been peeing. (Yup, Japan has hobos, and apparently they hang out in this little park!) I decided I wasn't so keen on this area anymore and decided to go home. Those weird birds were still flying around me. Their wing motion was so...odd...not like a bird at all. And that's when I saw and realized that they weren't birds. THEY. WERE. BATS. And flying closer to me every second. I freaked and quickly quickly walked home, crossing my fingers I wouldn't cross paths with one of them. I still felt cobweb-y and dirty when I got home. I might go to that area again during the day, but not at dusk or later.

Not bad, iPhone. :)

In my apartment, I have big maps on my wall of the entire state of the California, the greater Los Angeles Area, the San Diego area, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Sometimes I just sit on my bed and look at the maps. I was looking when my eye glanced on "Los Gatos." Of all the memories, it was walking in Lake Vasona park with my Aunt Mary and my mom that made me cry. For some reason, and more than ever before, I intensely feel that I am going to miss my non-nuclear family--my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I am going to miss them at Thanksgiving. I am going to miss them at Easter. As if missing my mom and my close friends wasn't bad enough, I add them in too, now. I can see this being the toughest part of sticking out the winter here in Shibs. But it's all part of becoming an independent citizen of the world, right? Your family is still there, even when you're not together.