Long time no write...

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I have been a little tied down with school work and little adventures... I really am enjoying my time here in Japan. I have met a lot of interesting, and cool people here from all over the world! I'm sorry I have not taken the time to write down all of the things that I have been up to lately. But the words I write do not give any justice to the actual experience.
Not all experiences are amazing. I didn't expect that when I got here. My listening skills are slowly getting better than my speaking skills and sometimes I still feel like I cannot speak Japanese. Usually when I am not talking to one of my friends and I am talking to a clerk at a store they stare a me as if I am not speaking Japanese at all. Things like that are extremely discouraging but I try not to let them bother me. I still get the strange looks everywhere I go, especially from the older people... I occasionally get dirty looks from girls around my age. But I think thats because they are jealous that I can be skinny but still have curves and don't feel like I need a pound of make-up to make me look pretty. I guess the only culture shock that I have kind of experienced is the staring. I mean I was stared at in America on occasion but not so intensely as I have been here. I mean it's not like they have never seen a foreigner before. Half of their media are people from America. Cameron Diaz is in a commercial for Softbank the phone company I have. Jamie Lee Jones is the face of Boss coffee! They LOVE Tom Cruise here (?)! But I still get the OMG what are you stares from children. Sometimes they are cute and smile at me and then other times they gape at me. But I like to think that everyone stares at me because they think I'm pretty... I can dream!
Classes are ok. I like my classes I find them interesting but that doesn't mean I want to be there all of the time. In my speaking class we are writing a skit that we have to video tape. It sounds cool but it's time consuming and I have other time consuming things that I have to do that I would rather not do... I have two papers that are due at the end of the semester. I have yet to start one and the other one I have less than to pages left on it!!!! YAY!
Today is Thanksgiving! And I have no turkey... *sigh* I do miss turkey a lot! I haven't had turkey since I left! But I have found a new love for shrimp. I liked shrimp before but now I LOVE it! Fried shrimp is probably my favorite thing here. I have had rice EVERYDAY since I have been here. Except for one day and I was totally surprised when I realized it. I love going to 7-11 or Lawson to get my onigiri, which is a rice ball with something in the middle wrapped with seaweed! The tuna one is my favorite, or the seaweed with seaweed in it... that one is delicious too!
One thing I have a hard thing understanding is that the colder it seem to get outside the less clothes that the Japanese girls seem to wear... it baffles me! Today alone I saw 3 different butt cheeks from girls! Their skirts are so short! And I don't even think it's because they are trashy or slutty or whatever, they just wear skimpy clothes. They all wear ridiculous heals or boots with heals. The heals are not very stable and some of them end up walking bow-legged. Some of them are very vain! I saw one girl curling her hair in the cafeteria! I think that was a little too much! They all dye their hair light brown or they try to get it as blond as possible, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even recognize themselves without make up on. Which is very sad because they are all gorgeous or extremely cute girls. It makes me sad that they think that they have to try so hard to get attention...
I'm sure most of you probably guessed that I would get a boyfriend while I was here and I guess those who did won't be surprised when I say that I do have a boyfriend. His name is Tomohisa Toda but his nickname is Tiki. His English is pretty amazing considering he never studied abroad. He is really cool, funny, smart sweet, nice, and so much fun to hang with. He helps me study too so it makes it that much nicer to have a boyfriend here.
I hope everyone has a great holiday!!!! Take care! I love you all!