Hey all!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I have been studying hard and aside from a trip to Kyoto during Golden Week (everyone but transportation/restaurant/shop people get paid vacations, and kids are out of school) I have been doing pretty much the same thing every day. My friend Regina asked about my days, and I realized I had never really spelled it out before so I copied and pasted my answer below:

My days are mostly like this:

Get up around 8:00 and make breakfast/drink coffee. Then I review Japanese language homework for a couple of hours.

If I have laundry or something, I do that too.

Japanese class is at 1:00, so I usually have a quick snack before I leave. Then I walk about 10 min. to campus, and have class for 1 1/2 hours. Japanese class meets once a day; my other classes are mostly on Tuesday and Friday, in the afternoon. Thursdays after Japanese I have a tutor.

After classes I get home and catch up on email before starting homework. I'm taking three law courses and doing an independent study in addition to the Japanese class. So I usually have at least 2-3 hours of homework, sometimes more. Somewhere in there I break for dinner.

I've started doing more yoga and weight lifting too, in addition to the walking I've been doing I have been able to drop some weight. So that's a newer aspect of my routine. :)

After homework and yoga I either go to bed or knit while I watch a movie or TV show online, depending on how I am feeling. Other times I call Dave or my mom and chat for a bit.

As I'm writing this I realize I need to start dedicating myself to practicing for the LSAT too! I take the test (entry test for law school) about a month after I get back home.

On the weekends I catch up on homework, clean my room, go to a shrine or temple or do something else that's kind of touristy. I usually end up doing a bit more lazing around than I probably should. It's really kind of a solitary life, most people are a lot younger than I am, and so I don't socialize a whole lot. I'm getting to old to stay out all night partying!

But really, it's been good for me. All this time to myself has made me have to address some bad habits and deal with/conquer some culture shock/homesickness/depression on my own. I am having to hold myself more accountable for how I spend my time, because so much of it is unstructured.

My classes are in constitutional law, international law, and there is one called "Gender and Development", which is less of a law course and more of a sociology/international studies course. It examines the status of the genders in developing countries and looks at United Nations and World Bank policies that are attempting to change how the genders are treated in developing countries. I find myself often asking, "is this ethical?" when we learn about various requirements different countries have to fulfill in order to receive aid or loans.

My independent study is on (of all things) the Salem witch trials. I wanted to do something about gender and law, and this is what came out. I chose it mostly because there is a lot of scholarly research stuff online--there are not a lot of English books in our library, so a lot of the reading has to be online.