Webcam

I bought a webcam in July so that I could Skype with friends and family. Then one day, while talking to Cesar and Grace Mao, I was told that there was this strange noise in the background. I thought that perhaps it was all the fans whirring in my room so I turned them off. Still, the sound persisted.

Today, I tried to see just how bad it sounded. So I opened Sound Recorder and just recorded what sounded to me like silence. I played it back and it sounded TERRIBLE. Sorry for putting you guys through that! Then I tried to talk directly into the mic and I couldn't even hear myself!

So I'm going to have to go to Akihabara to buy another webcam tomorrow. :( I had to go there for an errand anyway, so I suppose that it's alright. It's just sad that my webcam's doing this to me. D: I took good care of it too!

Anyhoo, I'm not going to Kyoto this weekend after all. I wanted to spend at least a week in the Kansai region but if I were to go this weekend, I wouldn't be able to do that. So my friend Yun and I decided to just go next week after she finished all of her finals. :D We're going to be there from the 19th until the 24! I decided to take the shinkansen (bullet train) back, which does cost a lot of money but with a gakuwari (student discount), it lowers the cost by A LOT. We'll have roughly 3 days in Kyoto and 2 days in Osaka. :)

My Japanese final is tomorrow! I barely studied for it. :( I looked over the review packet that they gave us but it's not doing me any good. Also, my friend left her textbook at school so I gave her mine to study. I've learned 95% of this already so it's ok-- for her, it's the first time that she's ever learned it so I figured that she needed the textbook more than I did. That's ok, I hope that I'll be ok! After tomorrow's final, I just have that dissertation to write, which I'm planning to finish after I get back from Akihabara so it'll be a nice, fun weekend for me! :D I should tourist it by myself in Tokyo! That is, if I am able to finish my paper by tomorrow. -_- I hope I can-- I want the professor to look over it before I turn it in.

Ok, that's all for now! I really should start studying forreal 'cause I have to wake up at 8. Peace!

The Home Stretch!

I have less than a month left in Japan. In three weeks and three days, I'll be on a plane bound for SFO!

School's ending this week for me. I have one exam for Japanese left, as well as a short 5 page dissertation for my Japanese theater class. Which, by the way, I can just send via email to my professor. ;D

My friends and I are planning to hit up the Kansai region this weekend. I'm super excited! Kantou is all modern and what not-- the Kansai region is more Japanese-y. I'm also going to go to Hokkaido on the 26th-28th with a friend from UCLA and a friend I met in my Japanese theater class who, by the way, is a regular 4 year student at ICU. The Hokkaido trip kind of ballooned from the three of us just wanting to hang out. When Jessi (the girl from UCLA) and I joked around, saying that we should go to Hokkaido to hang out, Yuri (the regular 4 year student) immediately said, "Ok!" We thought that she was kidding but she wasn't. o_o;; So I'm going to Hokkaido, folks! And it really helps to have a native Japanese speaker with us!

I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing in between all of that, though. I'll probably have to extend my lease with the Weekly Mansion. In comparison to how much it costs to stay in hostels and what not, it's actually kind of cheap to stay here. I'ts roughly 30 bucks a night at the Mansion.

I'm excited! Nearly three weeks of travel! I finally won't be tied down to having to commute 2.5 hours every day. :) I'll be sure to take lots and lots of pictures! Please pray for traveling mercies! I'll be taking the overnight bus, the train, flying... all sorts of modes of transportation. :)

Can't wait to finally venture out of Tokyo! And can't wait to go home!