She Bangs

Summer vacation's drawing to a close, and I'm sadly looking at my summer goal list:

• Spend a weekend at the beach swimming and barbecuing. I tried to make plans to do this, but they fell through. There's always next summer!

• Work on my sewing skills by making some small projects and work up to the level of making clothes  I made the dress!

Excuse the awful picture. I still had food poisoning.

• Write and receive more mail. If you'd like to exchange letters/cards... I'm looking to go old school and find some good snail mail pen pals to write to. I started vigorously with around 5 pen pals, but now letters are starting to slow down and it's getting easier to keep up and catch up with my pen friends.

• Get back in the habit of Japanese study, whether it be in the form of a textbook or reading/watching fun things in Japanese. Maybe I can find a good drama to become engrossed in. Well, I never got into a good habit of studying every day but got into this 15 minute slice of life episodic drama called Umechan Sensei, which is about a girl growing up in post-war Japan who becomes a doctor.

• Find myself a good sport (i.e. mode of exercise) to enjoy through the heat and humidity. I really failed at this one. I've been trying to get back into yoga as of this week. 

• Use the internet less. Less mindless surfing and more hobby time. Maybe I shouldn't cross this one off...

• Try salt on watermelon (upon my student's recommend)  I tried it, and I don't see what all the fuss is about. Sweet watermelon needs nothing to be eaten.

• Go on a mini road trip and use my car's ETC for the first time (ETC is the automatic electronic toll collection system for the highways). What can I say, I always made my husband drive, or I drove his car. Oops.

• Find myself the essential summer romance book and have a day at the park or beach reading. If you've ever lived in Japan, you know it's so ridiculously hot and humid here that I would fear roasting myself or melting my Kindle if I read outside. I read some interesting books, but all in the safety of my house.

• Make a travel scrapbook It's not very fancy, but it's made:

On another note, I did something a bit crazy for myself that I've never done before, and it's related to the awful Ricky Martin post title... I got bangs!

(Bangs were stolen from Zooey Dechanel to make this hairstyle possible)

Back to school I go! I hope it cools down here soon. Taka and I are already planning our next trip. Now that we've conquered western Japan, we're going to be heading east in a few weeks to finish the Kansai region of Japan by visiting Wakayama and Mie prefectures. Stay cool, everyone!