Your magic is real.

1:30am is not the best time to start writing a blog entry, but I have been long remiss in updating here; and, since I have spent the entire day in the apartment doing various lazy things, I have had plenty of time to think today.
First off, school is over, over, OVER, until January 15th. Sweet freedom, she is mine. I took an easy final on the 20th and then went to an advisor meeting and the end of the semester school party on the 21st. I am still in a weird state vis a vis most of the people at school, so finding people to talk at parties etc is a little strange, but I have found that I often end up gravitating towards the kids (playing with trucks > talking to people my age?), and the other people who do the same thing make good company. In particular, I was impressed with one guy who spent most of the party playing with someone else's two year old, even going as far as to sit with the toddler on his lap during our school's violin virtuoso's performance. Toddlers, it turns out, are not so appreciative of classical music, but the image of the wee little child sitting wide-eyed, with the boy-student's skinny body bent around him -- it sticks with me.
Before that was a great deal of sitting around in the apartment with dear visiting friend IK, introducing her to chu-hi while she introduced me to the first season of "Veronica Mars". After the last day of school was more of the same, but added to it numerous day trips to Tokyo (plus one to lovely odd touristy Kamakura). I have now been to quite a few more places in the nearby metropolis than I had before -- I probably doubled my time spent there, if not more, in four days of touristing. It was cold, definitely cold, and sometimes expensive and sometimes painful and sometimes boring. Other times, of course, it was wonderful. Particularly great was one evening when the two of us, plus a friend of mine, ended up in a small grill place in Ueno. Behind a main bar, a plethora of fresh ingredients surrounded a grill made of heated iron tubes, over which two chefs were at their work. Although Japan is usually hell on the vegetarian, we were able to order many delicious vegetables one at a time, eating our fill and drinking hot sake. We were sitting right inside the restaurant next to the door, so every time it opened we'd get another wintery chill before going back to stuffing ourselves on grilled potatoes, eggplant, asparagus, japanese mushrooms. I take back what I've said (out loud, and in my mind) about hating the food here.
I also finally went to Harajuku. I wish I had more time to explore all its weird little by-ways, where it seems a hundred tiny cafes and art galleries and independent clothing shops flourish, just a stone's throw away from the goth kid shop-havens.
And of course, I was in Japan for Christmas. Which was weird. Without family and presents, of course, it felt essentially like any other day, to the point where it is almost as if it hasn't happened yet. I went to a Christmas Eve party, I made a nice dinner on Christmas Day, but I don't yet feel ready to start having holiday traditions of my own while my family does their (our) thing on the other side of the planet.
Luckily, except for the price of the plane ticket, I will be going home for a week and a half after New Year's Day. I feel pretty irresponsible about going home on the one hand, because I can't afford it by any stretch of the imagination. But, at the same time, my sisters are getting older and I don't have the best idea of how they're doing right now. And my mom was going to all try and be brave about not having me home, but I felt guilty anyway. So I hope this makes up for whatever bad-daughter karma I need to counteract.
It seems like sleep is upon me. Lately, I have been having strange dreams, particularly about my(male, scholastic) nemesis, but I suppose interesting dreams help make up for days spent in pyjamas watching video clips from The Office, right?
Right.