Home

You can never go home again.

For Thanksgiving I took the train from Ann Arbor to Chicago and spent Thursday much in the same fashion that I had last year, with dinner and a show. We go to a convention hall somewhere in Chicago where they hold this Thanksgiving special of a buffet and a broadway show. Both the show and the food were good, in that aspect I can't at all complain, but Thanksgiving feels so empty now. With my family gone. Well, I can't say gone, most of them are still here for now, but broken.

All I can remember is how the holidays used to be, and the stark constrast of what they're like now as opposed to nefore suprises me every year, despite the fact that by now I should be used to it.

When I was growing up, we always had Thanksgiving at our house. Uncle Jimmy would always show up just a little bit before everyone was just about ready and waiting to eat, having sunglasses but no helmet after coming on his Harley from Chicago to Michigan. Wearing a leather jacket and either a Bears or Bulls shirt, his appearance matched that of the classic "badass", but never acted like one around the family. Being over six feet tall, my head never reached above his chest; he would nearly squeeze the breath out of me whenever he hugged me, saying "Mercy mercy mercy", whatever that meant. When he thought nobody was looking, he would sneak some food to my dog, and as a result he had a friend for life. My Grandpa John would make some sort of joke, and I would laugh until I was pink in the face and gasping for air all over again. Really it was a wonder I got through it all alive.

Both Uncle Jimmy and Grandpa John are dead now, and my mother and father are divorced. There will never be another Thanksgiving with them again.

When I came back from Chicago, I walked into the house, and again my own house suprised me. Most of the furniture was still gone from when my father left, it was dark, and cold, and when I expected Maggie to come, tail wagging and nearly beside herself with excitement, there was nothing. "Oh yeah, she's with Dad..." Where my room used to be, there's now just a plain room.

There is nothing in this town for me anymore, and for a moment, I am happy to know that come next year, I should be a world away. More than ever before, I think I realize that I have to make my own life, and that's starting right now.

My home is gone, and I can never go back.

Choo Choo

This semester has been a train wreck.

Well, not completely. This semester I've figured out a lot of things I think, and now more than ever I have a direction in life, which I suppose in an accomplishment. But I hate the feeling when you can't seem to keep things under control. There's this terrible sensation that I'm living "paycheck to paycheck" in an academic sort of sense. Since I didn't study for my Chinese quiz today I had to skip class rather than fail. Not a big deal since they throw out three of the lowest or missed quizzes, but I can't keep doing that. Every week I say to myself that "this time, I'm going to be completely prepared" and ever single time I find myself frantically studying the morning of the quiz and barely passing off a respectable grade. And I hate that.

But I don't feel like I'm being lazy. Between conversation partners, applying for study abroad, my tutorship for Japanese, being an officer for JSA, it seems like actually doing the work for my classes is just filler, instead of being first priority. There are some aspects of that that say that's not such a bad thing, but I want a little more balance.

Shit, there's a lab today that's due at 5 that I haven't started yet.

Ketchup

Ugh, my whole... body hurts. This fall I joined an intramural soccer team and on Friday night we had a double-header, two back to back games, and then yesterday I participated in "Field Day" for Japan Student Association and now I can barely move. Maybe as the day goes on I'll get more limber, but even sitting in my plush office chair and typing out this entry is almost painful.

Soccer is a lot of fun, I'm terrible at it, and not much of an asset to the team, but it's fun. Actually i don't think that I've played soccer since gym class in middle school, but luckily for the me the game is pretty straight forward: Run run run run run run run run run pass the ball run run run swear as the other team makes a goal run run pass the ball run run run don't try and shoot pass the ball. As long as you've got that down, you're golden.

Today I was eating brunch in the east quad cafeteria and realized that I depend on ketchup as a staple food. There are so many foods that *require* ketchup including but not limited to:

- Any sort of fried potato.
- Actually almost any American food that's fried.
- Scrambled eggs or anything that contains scrambled eggs, such as a breakfast burrito, etc.
- Ground beef in any form
- Hot dogs, or any related sausage
- Veggie meats in any form
- Macaroni and cheese

Americans need ketchup, it's not a condiment, it's a necessity. Try and eat any of the above foods without ketchup and it's just sort of, disappointing. You try and enjoy it but you can't stop thinking "Damn I wish I had some ketchup" and then your whole meal is ruined. One of the saddest things in the world is in the cafeteria when the big box of Heinz ketchup runs out after you've already gotten your food. And the weird thing is, normally i don't pay much attention to brands, but I can tell if a ketchup is from Heinz or Hunts, and believe me the latter leaves much to be desired.

During my only free day of the week I choose to spend it watching random videos on Youtube instead of getting work done...:B

Halloween

Sunday night, but it's not a scary one. This should be a good week, simply because I don't have to do jack shit. Yesterday I went to a party, had too much fun and ended up sleeping in until like 2 o'clock this afternoon. After that I think I got up, took a shower, and then ended up sleeping some more. What a great Halloween.

There is though, one thing that's standing in my way for tomorrow, and that's a 10 page paper for my Creative Writing class. But when it comes to creative writing, to pages really isn't all that bad, I don't think I'll have any trouble with it. There's this story I think I want to write. About a little girl who falls down a well and see's what her life would be like if it was "perfect". The whole "falling down a well" thing has been done several times before, but I really can't think of another way to make the transition. Maybe she could fall asleep outside or something...

Daylight savings time made today seem longer than usual, even though I slept through over half of the day. Today it's November 1st, I can't believe it. Soon it'll be Thanksgiving break, and then I turn 20, and then I get to go home for winter break. Right now it's not even 7, and the sky is pitch dark.

That's winter I guess...

Gym?

Day three without stopping. Now I feel like I'm on a roll, but if I say that I know that tomorrow or the day after I'll forget to write and the whole thing will have been a waste of breath. Today is Tuesday, one of the worst days of the week, but at least it's finished. Most of my homework, at least everything that I have to do, is now finished, and the only thing that I have to debate with now is whether or not to go to the gym.

Really I should stop thinking about it and just go. After I go I could say that I am glad that I did, I don't feel so tired, etc. But it's cold outside and I really am tired and... Well, and some other excuses.

At least next week is fall break. Finally. When I say Fall Break, I mean that there's no classes on Monday or Tuesday, but at least that's something. All I want to do is sleep all day, maybe I could save up my hours for the time that's coming ahead.

Ah, too sleepy, I lost to the gym. Maybe if I'm feeling really perky I can go tomorrow morning. My first class isn't until 11:00 after all.

We'll see how it goes.

Monkey Families

There's this Korean orange tea stuff that I absolutely adore. When I say "tea" you'd think of tea leaves or tea packets, but this stuff is different. Actually I don't even know if it's tea, but for now I'm calling it that. At least on the bottle it says "Honey Citron Tea" in English, and then some other things in Japanese and Korean that I can't read. Like a vat of jelly or something it comes in a huge jar. You take a couple of tablespoons full of what basically is orange goop and mix it with hot water to make the most delicious hot concoction you could ever imagine. How this stuff never made it to America I'll never know, I can only get it in the Asian market here in Ann Arbor. The first American company to catch on will be billionaires for sure. You can add a lot to make it really sweet, or just a little to flavor your hot water. Now I sound like a commercial, but I really like it.

Recently I've been doing a good job of keeping on top of things. At least I don't "think" I'll have to get up early tomorrow to play catchup. Tonight I'm memorizing the Chinese vocab for tomorrow's quiz, I can be proud that I'm doing it the night before instead of the morning of.

Even though I'm not as studious as I was last year, I think I can say that I'm a lot happier. So I'm going to get a B in Antrho because I would rather spend my time living my life than memorizing the different families and geneses and orders and kingdoms and species of some one hundred different monkeys. Whatever, as long as I don't get a C.

...Yeah, that would be bad.

Dorm Coffee

Today I woke up at like 12:30. Why do a lot of my blog entries start out like that? Maybe because it's the first fact of the day you have to face when you've slept through over half of it. Now I'm sucking on dorm coffee like it's water in an attempt to wake up and get something productive done today. Ever since I bought half and half the coffee that I make is now drinkable, and I'm very proud of that fact.

Looking at my last entries promise to write every day makes me smile, I think it's been over a month. When you get out of practice with something getting back into it seems harder than even starting in the first place. So if I'm going to write every day, instead of saying that I will I should just do it; the proof is in the pudding.

Sundays are awful. They're just the time that's before Monday, and a day when you have to do everything that you've neglected to do in the past two days. At least that's how it is for me. Today I have to do my study questions for Anthro/Bio, not my favorite class... All of my weekly homework for Chinese, and then my story for Creative Writing.

One thing that's interesting is that I see that people have been posting comments on my blog. Really didn't expect that. See, I thought it people would comment I would get some sort of email saying "Someone actually found your blog!" and then you could see the comment, but it looks like people for a long time now have just been popping in out.

Funny thing is is that there are a lot more comments on my Japanese blog than my English... Hm....