thursday night update (the bullet list)

• it's been so clear here the last two days that I can see Mt. Fuji on my walk home. Last night the sunset was completely incredible - I haven't moved the pictures I took from my camera, though I know they won't do it justice.
• roommate has been downright friendly, cheery, et al. the last week or so, so probably look forward to it all blowing up before she goes home? i always speak too soon on these things
• school is good, though i've ratcheted down to doing about 20 minutes of homework a night (so has everyone else, trust me). Class is really engaging, it's just that we're all tired and we only have like 6 class days to go, so it's really easy to want to just scrap it all. Of course, I have a semester-test next week as part of the "last week of classes" which should be ... ugh, yeah, not so fun.
• I've been helping everybody edit their grad applications, and one of my friends who was applying at Oxford just found out that he got in (conditionally... and the conditions are fortcoming, but it was a congratulations email he got). His stuff was murder to edit - linguistic analysis of classical Japanese and Chinese - but whatever, I'm counting it as a win! Besides, it's good to see him happy.
• Saw a "Bunraku" (Japanese puppet theatre) play last week Wed. MONKEY PUPPET!!! It was at the National Theatre so they do this whole middle section where they explain a little bout the different roles of the singers, musicians, and puppeteers. I felt culturally enriched!
• And that was my 2nd trip to Tokyo in the space of like a week, so I feel well traveled even if it was just to take the train for 45 min or so. I also learned awesome words at my friend's birthday party - apparently "threesome" in Japanese is たんっぴ or "tan-pi". THE MORE YOU KNOW.
• I got the coolest smelly thing in tokyo. It's a flower diffusion thing, where there's aroma oil in the bottle and the flower, that is made out of paper, soaks the oil up and changes from white to color in the process. Kind of like this except mine is taller and has two flowers. It is awesome - I come home every day and my room not only smells great, but I have pretty white flowers turning to pink-ish flowers. It was kind of expensive (like $20ish) but worth it!

ok, that's not everything worth telling, but that's all my brain has right now. i just wanted to say "hi! i haven't been killed for my room yet or anything!"