Spending a Week at Home

I landed in Denver on the evening of August 9th, and was able to see my friend Luke for the night before going back to the airport to fly home to Missoula the next day. I unfortunately only had a week to see my friends and family, because I would be working as a Residential Assistant the upcoming year at the University of Denver and needed to be back in Denver early for training. I got a good amount of time in with all of the people I wanted to see, and although I totally would have spent another month at home, feel like I was satisfied with how I spent my time while home.

I got to see my pets, which is always fun, especially since I miss having a cat. Thankfully, King Princess always wants to follow me around the house for pets when I'm home, so he keeps me company. The day after I got back, we went up to Flathead lake with my close and extended family. Like usual, my great Uncle Bill took us all out on his boat for some surfing, which was a lot of fun! The water was nowhere near as warm as the lake I swam at in Japan, but was pretty warm compared to average.

I was pretty jetlagged the whole week, especially that first day, so I missed the second half of the lake day and ended up napping. My sleep schedule was off for the entire rest of the week, and it didn't help that I kept getting less sleep than I should have in order to spend more time with people, but it was worth it. I helped with a few family meals, highlights being homemade pizza and then our classic french toast breakfast. I was able to go to lunch with both sets of my grandparents to catch up, and also got to see my great aunt as well!

Featured above are me and my mom, and my sister Aspen with her boyfriend Chance. With my friends, I played a lot of the card game Magic the Gathering, which was fun because I hadn't played in so long ( I also got to steal my friends decks and have a better time using their more expensive cards). Julien had his birthday party just a few days after I got back, so I got to meet and chat with many of his friends from school and the film program.

Funny story, but while I was in Japan, I met a Japanese girl named Yukino who told me she would be studying at the University of Montana, the college in Missoula. I put her in contact with my sister so she could ask questions, since Aspen is currently studying there. I get back to Missoula, and Aspen goes "oh yeah, I'm picking up Yukino from the airport tomorrow, do you want to come with?". I was more than happy to go with, I was just shocked by the timing. We picked her up, took her to campus, helped her move in to her room, and then gave her a small tour of campus. Seeing Yukino reminded me that I wanted to try and connect with any international students coming from Japan to my college this year, so I made a note to send out an email to the program coordinator.

I got my classic Outback Steakhouse visit in with Ethan and Alex, my original first time roommates from high school. We ordered the bloomin' onion (its our tradition, you can't change it) and talked about life for the evening. The four cats above are the souvenirs I got for my siblings, one cat for each of us! My final day home, I took Keenan and Anahla with me to watch the new Deadpool movie, and we had a blast.

My parents dropped me off at the airport the morning of Sunday, the 18th. I was pretty overwhelmed with wanting to be home for longer, having to re-adjust to living in America, missing Japan, and steeling myself for the job training I would be going through for the next two weeks. I already had a huge vacation in Japan, but I could have used a little more vacation back home. I flew back to Denver, picked up my car from the airport, and moved all of my things in from Luke's house into my new on-campus apartment space in only four hours! I'm pretty excited about the size of the space, but honestly it might be a little too big for just one person. Huge change of speed compared to my tiny room in Japan, which is about the size of the big closest in this unit.

My website still isn't functioning as intended, but I'm working on getting that fixed soon. This year, I want to be focusing a lot more on improving myself and expanding my options for after I graduate. I plan to be networking with professors and others on campus. I want to stay focused in working on independent projects to give myself a foot up in applications for companies, and also keep self-studying Japanese, not just because I find it fun, but also for the purpose of going back with better speaking skills in the future. I want to keep up with the car club, but also invest some of my time into music and maybe look to get a group together playing live at some low-key gigs! Its going to be a busy and exciting year, but if I keep my priorities straight, I believe I can stay motivated, build a plan for after graduating, and also have fun. I'll be pretty busy with everything, so don't expect my posts to be as frequent or exciting compared to Japan, but I'll see what I can do!