7/19-9/9 timeline of my nonexistent period (blog at least) part 1

Hey, everyone!

How's it going? I decided to come out of my intentional hibernation, partly due to some people dying to hear about my life =), so hopefully, you will be able to read about what's going on with me on a I-would-call-it-a-regular basis.

First off, I would like to go through what happened to me from 7/19 to 9/9 before I went to Kagoshima prefecture to do a 10-day homestay. Even though I didn't blog during last two months, I at least took notes about what I did.

One thing the readers should note is that I broke up with my gf in Korea on 8/11. Some of you know this already, but I've moved on after that, and rest assured that I'm doing fine.

OK, then. Here we go, back in time.

7/19-20 Trip to Hakone (a famous hot spring resort with lots of stuff to do about 2 hours from my place) with my ex, Hyoju.

7/20 Went to see Spider-Man 2 with Hyoju at Roppongi Hills.

7/21 Looked around Odaiba with Hyoju.

7/22 Went to the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office building (Tocho) in Shinjuku with Hyoju for the nightview and met up with Muk and other UIUC students who were done with their study abroad in Kanazawa and were sightseeing Tokyo before going back to America.

7/23 Kanto from Kanazawa came back to Tokyo from his trip to Korea with some of the study abroad students, so I met up with him and Tony, Ray, and Scott (last year's study abroad gang).

7/24 Delievered my speech about gyudon (beef bowl) at the Meguro-ku Speech Contest, and 5 out of 13 participants got a prize, including me!

7/25-27 Went to Wadamura, Nagano prefecture for the Meguro UNESCO International Exchange Youth Retreat. Learned about UNESCO and had fun hanging around a bunch of foreign people.

7/28 Went to the MIFA office for my once-a-month part-time job. Basically, trying to help just-arrived-foreigners get used to life in Japan by making Meguro-ku, where I live, a more foreigner-friendly City. Ku is actually a City rather than a Ward, but many governmental offices use Ward because Ward has been used since the old times. It's messed up.

7/29 Went to the lab nomikai, drinking and eating event, because one of the members got married, one just came back from an internship in America, and one successfully defended his doctoral thesis. I feel like I'm the lowest in the chain because I'm just a silly, lost research student who doesn't get student discount on mass transit.

7/30 Did part-time job at Activision translating DOOM 3 manual. Korean and English. Went to a volunteer event and played around with Korean kids with disability who came to Japan for sightseeing. Met some Japanese volunteers as well who ranged from middle schoolers to college students.

7/31 Volunteered again by cleaning up a small park in Shibuya with some people from the night before. Went to the Sumidagawa Hanabi Taikai, the biggest fireworks in Japan, with Mina, Naomi and Mayumi.

8/1 Went to see King Arthur alone.

8/6 Met Satomi, a Japanese e-mail friend, in Kinshicho and had some English conversation.

8/7-8 Climbed Mt. Fuji with dorm people. Rained on the way up, but the bigger problem was I got sick shortly after eating cup noodles at the 7th station. Managed to get to the apex and take some nice pics but ended up throwing up 3 times during the whole ordeal. All in all, a good experience that I will not try again. Not any time soon.

8/9 Met Junko, another e-mail friend, in Shibuya and had some English conversation. Met Chie, another e-mail friend, in Kikuna and had some English conversation.

8/10 Part-time job at Activision again. Got an e-mail from Hyoju declaring an official breakup. My first relationship lasted 172 days.

to be continued with part 2...