december update~

I can't believe it's already December! I finished my novel on the 22nd, way earlier than I've ever been able to finish it before. (need to update that sidebar sometime before the next nanowrimo comes around this time...) Since then, I've been trying to recover from writing until (past) midnight instead of going to bed and reviewing grammar and vocabulary for the JLPT. My grammar has gotten a lot better since I first came back to Japan ^^ My vocabulary has gotten better, too... but is still hovering around 60%... The Level 1 passing grade is 70% (it's 60% for the lower levels). Still, if I can get over 70% on the other sections, I probably have a good chance of passing ^^; I just hope the actual exam isn't too much harder than the practice ones I've been taking for the past two months......

Anyway, my parents got me a JR rail pass as an early Christmas present, since I'm on a tourist visa this time~ So I'll be going to Tokyo the week after the exam, and then visiting Kyoto for a couple days at the end~ And then I'll be back in Okayama to pack and do the Christmas show for my church, and then I'll be back in the States indefinitely from December 22.

The older brother of one of the kids in the youth group goes to the University of Tokyo (Todai), the top university in Japan, and he said he'd show me around if I came to visit, so I was looking at the website to see if I cared which campus I went to when I found a link for the Todai-Yale initiative. It was really strange to be back on Yale's website after so long, especially when I was researching what I wanted to do in Japan. I knew without looking at the address that I was on Yale's site, though :D It was just weird seeing Richard Levin with all those Japanese professors XD;