is this thing still on?

Going back to Japan (again) next week. I'm taking the JLPT Level 1 in December, so I'm going back just to study for that... I've been putting off packing and moving and all those kinds of things for a long time now... and I'm not really looking forward to having to figure out how to get all my stuff home ><;; gah, I just hate dealing with that kind of stuff...

I had a fun summer, though. Stayed with my sister up at Berkeley for ten weeks taking their advanced Japanese class~ met lots of new people. rediscovered facebook. The problem with facebook was that when I first got it, not that many people had it because membership was still really limited. Now that anyone can join, I know a lot more people who use it on a regular basis. I also got an iPhone and started posting up pictures to both facebook and a separate flickr account.

While at my sister's place, I had cable for the first time and watched way too much tv... I'd also been american tv deprived for two years... I still ended up watching nothing but animal planet (which I kind of had in college for a bit), tlc, cartoon network, and bravo... and occasionally nick and disney channel...

Some friends from Japan came to visit, so I got to take them around L.A., enjoying my car while I could. They started this new takoyaki party trend for me and my cousins :D I think the thing I missed most about L.A. while in Japan (and Berkeley, to some extent) was not having my car to throw things in. Parking was bad at Berkeley, plus there were tons of pedestrians and cyclists... and I didn't know the streets that well, so I was really dependent on the gps.

There were a lot of things I'd planned to do while I was home that I didn't, but I've been happy just taking it easy. I've tried to keep up my Japanese by listening to Japanese radio shows, which has been helping a bit. There's still so much grammar and vocabulary I need to catch up with, though >>;;;; Thinking about it just makes me not want to do it...