Housewarming Party & TGIF tomorrow

There have been a lot of changes to my life in the last few months. Granted, I would say I am now acclimated to the culture (I would hope so after 2 years...) and I have a good situation (ie I'm also still happy to be here after 2 years), but among the changes: a lot of the people I have been close with or gotten close to since coming have now left the country, I have a new school (and a foreign coworker), and more recently, several other foreigners moved into my apartment building, making my living situation more social than it's ever been (at least without me having to leave the house). This last change is actually a good thing, but it's a transition from being alone in my little tower to sharing it with several other foreign women. Remember when I went a week and a half without seeing another foreigner when I arrived?

Deyi's Housewarming
Anyways, I'm rambling, but the reason I am thinking about all of this is that last night was a housewarming party for one of the new foreigner women in my building, a lovely American named Deyi. I have known Deyi for about 2 months now. She's been living in Himeji and commuting quite a ways to work each day, so she decided to move and was successful in getting a place in our block. It's nice to have an American girl around again and she's a lot of fun (and has cute style - I really like what she did to her apartment); it almost feels like living in a dorm again, though, with your friends down the hall.

The party was pretty laid-back. Deyi and our friend Hitomi made nabe (Japanese stew) and everyoe brought a gift and something else to eat. I brought Deyi some sake and made a yoghurt dip to go with pita bread. At one point, we were discussing Halloween costumes and I ended up showing-off my hideously-fabulous 80s prom dress for a friend who is considering going as JEM, but otherwise, it was just a fun night of talking and hanging out.

Thursday
Not much else going on. I biked to school today, which wasn't bad and I actually enjoyed (especially now that the humidity is gone and I'm not all sweaty when I arrive). I was also surprised when I got here to discover a little bag of old-fashioned candy on my desk, a random gift from my Vice Principal (with an itsumo arigatou). I definitely didn't expect that one, but it was pretty cute of him - and now I have candy for my jack-o-lantern candy dish :)

Midterms start next week so things are winding down for the staff. We're letting kids study in a lot of the classes, and while I've had to write two tests today, I will be pretty much free all next week (other than correcting notebooks and ramping up on the self-study time). I am not planning on going very far for this weekend, but we have Monday off for Health and Sports Day and I'm definitely looking forward to the extra time and nice weather.