Catching Up and... alcohol

Hi, there! Long time no blog. I keep meaning to come back and blog here, but it feels like blogger is just so isolated from my other social media outlets (not that I'm super active on those), so in a way it feels pointless. But if I'm writing for myself then what does it matter, eh? Yea, let's go with that.

The New Years Resolutions of last post, hm. Well, I definitely haven't kept up with the writing, and I haven't been incredibly explorative (word?). As for thinking positively; I'm not sure if it was the rush of the school year ending, all the alcohol, or just the cycle of unhappiness lifting, but I think I've been doing better on this one. :3

What have I been up to lately? Not so much...

Going drinking with friends, mostly. We had an epic string of Friday nights, that have become more randomised since spring break started.

Random wandering and drinking in Shinjuku. This^ is a magical taiyaki we bought in front of Studio Alta. It's anko paste inside of croissant bread instead of the usual taiyaki cake-like bread. Super delicious and only 200 yen if you're over there. (Watch out, though, the line gets massive.)

My friend trying to get a better picture of the sign. Haha

To add to the heaps of (unhealthy) drinking, got a magical bottle of Moet & Chandon as a gift from my friend. Drank this a few weeks later and had an epically hungover day at work. :/

Happiness is not a warm gun. (We were in the HUB, btw; random white girl in the bg.)

Another random thing I'm enjoying too much these days is graffiti and sticker art around Shibuya. Live house staircases and bar walls.

If my life could just look like this. ^

This one from a staircase of a rock bar where we ended up going to randomly watch an air guitar competition. There was an MC and he would introduce the acts, who would each get up on the tiny stage and pretend to rock out to a song. The most epic was this older guy in a suit and a fedora. To look at him you would have thought he was a normal salaryman with a penchant for headgear, but when his song started he went wild. It was simultaneously one of the most impressive and hilarious things I've seen in my life (there's a list I've got going of those, I kid you not).

These pictures are from a while ago, though. I've had my hair cut since then...

This one with my hair up. It was really quite long.

New length around my chin, and maybe a little fuller and longer than I would like in the back.

One of my friends convinced me to try his salon in Omotesando, where all of the salons charge you out the bleep, because I guess he wanted to be helpful, so I tried it out. However, I don't know about you, but in my experience, I can tell if I'm going to like my haircut pretty much as soon as I meet the stylist. This may be some psychological result of my interaction with a person I don't quite find reliable or some nonsense, however this has generally been true my entire life. One of the best haircuts I ever had was given to my by one of my college roommates, and she was not in the least a trained professional. Anyway, I haven't quite enjoyed the cut itself, but it's been so nice to have it short, that I've been able to over look it. :)

I'm also a bit homesick lately. Not quite sure what that's about. It might because I caught the flu over my break and have been forced to spend a lot more time than I would have liked laying in bed and watching youtube videos. I never really thought about it when I lived in the US, because it was normal there, and even years of living here in Japan it was never an issue to me, but life in the US is really kind of ballin'. Driving around in cars, eating Doritos, cocktails that taste worth enjoying, wearing huge sunglasses without people thinking you're the biggest douche bag on the planet and/or a tourist... It's weird to me that this is my idea of ballin'.

But yea. This has been cathartic. 

I'm addicted to Mamrie Hart's youtube segment "You Deserve A Drink". ♡

Happy New Year! ミ☆

Happy 2014, everybody! Just finished watching Kathy Griffin making Anderson Cooper crazy uncomfortable while the ball dropped over here. Actually didn't have a very exciting new years celebration here, so we'll skip that. I'm interested, what's your new years resolution for 2014?

As I wrote on twitter, I came home on the 21st. My mum decided at the last minute that since I had so much unscheduled time over the holidays she would just buy a ticket and ship me home, so home I came. (Granted I did miss Plastic Tree, the GazettE, Sendai Kamotsu, and Angelo lives respectively.)

My connecting flight from San Francisco was balls awful, btw. Seven hour layover on a 9 and half hour flight with no sleep (and not a penny on me to buy a water or anything while I waited). Then the actual connecting flight to Atlanta was super turbulent and I got sick. Never want to repeat this experience if possible.

Jet lag has also been a bit off this time around. Usually I'm snoozing by 9pm and up reading or drawing with a coffee by 5am during my first week or so, but this time it's been opposite. Sleep kicks in around 5am and then I'm up and at it around 1pm.

Anyway, I got home just in time to get in the mood and celebrate Xmas with the fam. Which mainly consists of me drinking at any and every possible occasion.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Xmas and got lots of great things! My real present this year (to myself, lol) was my MacBook. So from Santa this year I got a few bucks to put toward covering it as I continue to pay it off over the next couple of months. I did get some other lovely things, though...

Yay! These converse aren't as blatantly red as they appear; they're actually kind of pink. I adore them! I've been wearing them out every day since I got them. I also got some Ciate nail polish in yellow with a vial of these colourful sprinkle-like beads in different colours to accent. It's strangely Eastery, though, haha.

Also, since I told my family I wanted nail polish, my sister assembled this for me...

12 bottles of nail polish and my facial moisturiser from Origins! She literally just went into the store and picked every shade she would never wear in a million years and got it, haha.

I also got a furry hat, some lotion, and a portable DVD player thing (which I will hook up to a TV and use as an actual DVD player, haha). Hope you guys got some good stuff too!

Anyway, I have to be honest and say I haven't really enjoyed this trip home like I thought I would. It's been sort of a bitter pill for me, especially after my good friend from Waseda came to hang out and drink with me the night before I headed back. I feel like every time I remember why I loved living in Japan, lately, reality sort of punches me in the face soon after. It's difficult to explain and I know it's mostly psychological and probably just a part of growing up, but... Growing up sucks.

I guess I'm sort of in a place right now where I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I know I don't belong in Japan, Japan is for the Japanese and I feel like it will always be that way. I also see very clearly that I don't belong back here where I grew up, but that's not really surprising, since I never really felt like that when I lived here either.

Which brings me to the point of this entire post (aside from wishing you season's greetings and showing off my pretty things): New Years Resolutions.

I've never been big on them, but I'm hoping to give it a real go with three resolutions I'm going to try to make good on. After all, can one really improve without setting some sort of goal to improve toward?

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2014 New Years Resolutions of a dish

1. Write More - It hasn't been long, granted, but since I've gotten my new computer I've started keeping a very casual, jot-like journal in the memo pad. It's simple: a date, a time, some kind of list or random feeling or simple description of what I've been doing. I've never been a good journaler, but I can't help but feel like I'm thinking a bit more clearly when I'm writing my thoughts these days.

2. Think Positive - I've been in a rut, and I do believe in the power of positive thinking. I really want to get back into that positive mindset. I think that positive thinking even when it all seems bad can help you get through all kinds of difficult situations, so I'm going to put that belief to practice this year. I'm going to have a good year. ("Year of Penny!")

3. Explore - This year is the year of exploration. I wanna go new places and do new things. I've lived in Japan for about 4 years now all together, and there's just really no excuse for not having seen more than I have. This year I'm going to explore everything and reawaken that childlike curiosity that sent me there to begin with. I think I'm going to start with that damn Sky Tree!

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I'm interested in what resolutions you guys are planning for this year and whether you've ever had much success in keeping them? I know it's easy to feel like the world is your oyster at 1:30am on Jan 1st, but there's no telling how things will be come February, right? POSITIVE THINKING.

I know. I need to calm down on the Kahlua before bed.

Anyway, tl;dr.

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYBODY!ミ☆

Snagged this from the post right before I headed out for the states.

Thanks for the lovely card, Ande!

MacBook Love

Hello! Sorry to be so absent lately. Ever since my old computer become impossible to read/write on I thought I would use my phone to update and instead of just leaving this blog alone, but yappa the blogger app for iPhone just sucks. I tried posting once or twice from it and it just wouldn't seem to update properly.

I still think keeping a blog, keeping a sort of record of things I've done, what I'm thinking is important, though, so I still want to keep updating. I like twitter style, just saying what I think when I think it, but in the end, it doesn't amount to much does it. Oh well, my new xmas/bday present to myself should make my whole world much better.

I wrote it on twitter and instagram already, but I got a...

A MacBook! Technically, a 13" MacBook Pro with retina screen. ♡

It's small and adorable and sleek and beautiful and just basically everything and more than I could ever need. Since I started looking at new computers there were several I was interested in, but all the positive feedback about Macs just finally burrowed its way into my core after all. I am almost a complete virgin to Mac, too, so I was worried about learning to use it, but I have been super surprised to find it's incredibly user friendly. I love and am abusing the little finger swipe mechanism right now too, to go back and forth and move around etc. I'm shocked how much it works like my iPhone.

The one thing that has startled me though, is that I just made this purchase Monday, not a week ago yet and already the system has just frozen on me completely twice. wtf is dat

But I will go back to the store and figure out what the shit is going on this week. :D

Anyway, I'm poor again, yay! Cheers!