All good gifts

I'm sorry I've been slacking on my blog lately, I haven't ventured out into the city much or done anything particularly exciting as of late since I want to try and save some money for my travels. I have 3 DAYS of classes left, YESSSSS!!!! I will miss my students, well, some of them (especially the ones who gave me presents!!), but I'm ready to move on to something new and of course I'm ready to see all my friends and family back home! I have been checking higher education job sites like crazy for the last few weeks and have applied to a few jobs already, so I'm hoping that getting a head start will help me to land a job not too long after I get back to CT, but heaven knows what could happen with the terrible job market these days.

For the time being I'll just focus on the more near and certain future which includes lots of packing and lots of traveling! I'm so incredibly psyched about my trip to Thailand and I'm also pretty excited about the time I'm going to spend just traveling around Japan a bit more. I'm going to visit Nikko, Hakone, and Matsushima, the last of which is another of the three views of Japan (in my post before this I spoke of Miyajima, one of the other three views). A few days ago I went over to Akihabara a.k.a Electric Town and bought myself a new digital camera which will be reimbursed to me as a Hanukkah present from my parents when I return. I am now the proud owner of a beautiful white Casio Exilim EX-Z77... looking back at this last sentence it sort of sounds as if I've given birth to a camera, well, you get the idea. So now I'll be able to take pictures of all the beautiful places I go without lugging around my 100 pound lump of metal considered by some to be a camera.

I mentioned in the first paragraph that some of my students have given me gifts. I should also mention that two of them have treated me to meals! One student took me to a lovely traditional style Japanese lunch at the Tokyo Dome Hotel. The meal had maybe 5 or 6 courses and each one was presented absolutely beautifully, which of course is the Japanese way, everything from food to gardens needs to be aesthetically pleasing. My other student and I went out for Thai food in Ikebukuro, we'd gone to the restaurant once before with Jenn, but Jenn could not come because she ended up flying home last month for surgery on her wrist and is currently residing in Georgia. My student and I had a good time together though, she is really a lovely person, I'm definitely going to miss her. In addition to my meals I've received a traditional Japanese bag that the first woman who took me to lunch bought for me, some lovely hand made stationary and paper holders, and today one of my students brought me a GORGEOUS hand painted ornamental fan. I'm seriously in love with this fan, I had been thinking of buying a nice one for myself but I just couldn't bring myself to spend the money on something like that, but now I'll have this one, which is so much better because it will have the memory of my student attached to it.

My absolutely beautiful fan:

This weekend I'm going to farewell parties for two of my friends and the next weekend is my party. Saying goodbye to everyone is going to be sad, but knowing I'm coming home to so many amazing people certainly makes it a lot easier. I am just counting down the days! One month and six days to go!