ゆきがはやくふってほしいです。

"I want it to snow!" That's what I think about often these days. It's been so cold outside - so I believe that if it's going to be so freezing, then we should have something pretty to look at! But I don't say that over and over again out loud because Takeshi said to me once, "Well, I don't want it to snow because I bike to work everyday..." Oops.

Recently I've learned a group of kanji (from 'My Japanese Coach') which have to do with nature. I'm practicing these kanji this time around:

竹 - bamboo

森 - grove

田 - rice paddy

雨 - rain

山 - mountain

川 - river

I already knew the kanji for mountain, since it's simpler - and the kanji for river which I should be able to do since it's part of my last name now! ;)

I've been making more types of cookies lately. Usually we go through some heavy-cooking phases in this household! Haha. This time I ended making flaxseed cookies, since I bought a package of flaxseeds a while ago, and they've been sitting around. These cookies are very delicious, and have that crunchiness to them - because the recipe calls for a LOT of flaxseed! About 2 and 1/4 cups. This recipe yielded a huge amount, so I also have 2 more "logs" of the dough in the freezer for later. Anyone who wants the recipe, let me know!




For Photography class, we've been getting homework assignments which call for us to take about 80-100 shots! This time around I decided to take close-up shots (not "macro-shots" - thank you Dad) of the different tea leaves I have. The best thing I've learned from this basic photography class so far, is the process you can use in Adobe Photoshop to eliminate unwanted color-schemes in your photos, pumping up the contrast, and really making a photo look 200x better. Anyway, I've been drinking up all of this older tea I've had for AGES, so I can buy other tea finally. I try to get Takeshi to help me with it, but I know he's more likely to think of his beloved coffee first! Here are some shots:



rosemary tea leaves

pu-erh tea leaves

chamomile tea leaves

Wish I was home instead...

I'm in my Advertising class - well the end of it. Next is my Art History class which goes until 6:45pm. Ugh. It's totally dark when I get out now, from my evening classes, since daylight savings and such. And to boot, it's freezing!

Takeshi and I have been talking more and more about what we'll do after I graduate, since we are planning to move to a bigger city. He flashed a small initial list of places he's interested in, or knows of around the country. At first, we left it open to possibly moving anywhere in the U.S. but the other night we came to a decision to, for now, limit our move to somewhere on the east coast. To make the move all the way over to the other side of the country will take up a lot more time and money. So far, I really liked the idea of moving to San Francisco or somewhere in CA, but I agree that we don't have oodles of money to spend on, going out there to look at possible jobs, possible apartments, just SEEING what the city's like, and then moving everything there. I've started to do my own research and bookmarking of certain design studios in major cities.

Onto to my next class! I wonder what I'll do for dinner.