first of all, let me say that i went to an new year's enkai (drinking party) today and it didn't suck. i'm finally starting to be able to pick up the subjects of discussion when listening to a japanese conversation. i'm not there yet, but it's a beginning. Now, to my vacation...
after enduring a 12 hour flight sitting next to a guy even bigger than me, i lurched off delta flight 56 non-stop service from tokyo to atlanta slightly disoriented by the suddenly reacquired ability to feel my arms. i was extremely anxious to see my mom and friends waiting for me in the arrivals lobby, so naturally my bags were among the last to arrive. upon passing through customs and re-relegating my luggage to the hartsfield international airport baggage claim system. i walked out and was joyously reunited with my mom, mike, jill, todd, and catherine. todd had apparently been so anxious to see me that he fell asleep waiting.
i was peppered with random questions about life in japan (the question most often asked throughout my time in jooo-jah was "so are you bigger than everyone else over there?"), and my friends and i agreed to split up and meet later at my house. my mom took me by checkers, and i ate some real hamburgers. though i missed hamburgers and pizza during my first five months in japan, chowing down on them again wasn't really any sort of epiphany. my taste buds are used to american food still, so, much like returning home, it was more an issue of being truly at ease than it was of sating my craving for real food.
anyway, the gang came over, we ordered pizza, played pool, and had an incident involving the toilet in the basement bathroom. no more needs to be said than my mom was not pleased to be dragged out of bed in order to fix it. todd told a humorous story about how he fought the tech parking office and the tech parking office won. More on the next week or so later.
been listening to: living sacrifice, soul junk, et al.