I had my hair cut. A daughter of my mother's friend is a professional hair stylist, so she cut her mother, my mother and me at the hair salon she works for today (the place wasn't open for bussiness today). Now my hair is a lot lighter!

HOME:

I came back home tonight.
There were new
- water heating system in the bathroom,
- toilet,
- slim CD/MD player at home.

Flights were all right. I don't have jet lag at all. :)
I had udon and some rice cake sweets.

Christmas Day:

I honestly did not expect to receive more than two gifts.
However, I got so many wonderful gifts from his parents and him.
My parents even have never given me that many stuff at once.
Some of the gifts were my most-wanted book "Psychophysiological Reading"(nerdy, huh...), a printer with scanner and copy functions and a soccer ball. :) Clothes his mom chose for me fit me well, too.

For dinner we had shrimp scampy, piraf, bread, salad and tiramisu.
It was very delicious.
After dinner we watched "Kindergarten Cop" starring the current CA governor.

I am so grateful to them for letting me stay here and being so nice to me.

I experienced the real American Christmas this year.

Santa Clause is coming~

We went to church close to Eric's house.
I had never been to chuch, so it was exciting to attend Christmas service.
The pastor's talk was very interesting. The congregation sang songs inbetween talks.
At the end, we lit candles each other and concluded the night with Holy Night.
It was indeed a fun time, compared to Buddhism ceremonies. :)

After coming home, we had egg nok and went to bed early for Santa Clause to come in the house any time.

Congratulations on your graduation, Natalie, Faisal, Becky, Fumie and Shiho!

I am leaving Chambana soon after attending Shiho's commencement. ;)
I will fly back to Japan on 12/30/03 (leave Chicago on the 29th and lose a day).

The Lord of the Rings was long, but interesting.
Holiday shopping is so hectic. I shopped so much this week.

If you happen to be in Kobe and Osaka between 12/31/03 and 1/14/04, please feel free to email me or call my home at 078-734-3402.

Today's work was so nice! It was really quiet; there was only one customer in the whole morning. I had a nice relaxing morning at work.

We wanted to see the Lord of the Rings last night, but we couldn't get tikets... so we bought tickets for this morning and saw Something's Gotta Give.
It was a cute and funny movie. :)

No business is going on here in FLB office. I have so much free time here today.
I was initially supposed to work until 3, but someone wanted me to take over her 3-5 shift. I don't have anything to do, so I decided to stay until closing and make some more money. :)

It's not that I have absolutely nothing to do. I still have to read lots of papers for my own study, clean my room, and change tires, etc... Ah I need to buy some Christmas gifts... What should I get...

Finals done!
Projects sibmitted! My winter break has started!!!!! yeay yeay yeay!

I had Chinese and Speech & Hearing Science yesterday and Psych (Cog Psych Lab) today. I am so happy to get over with the psych class finally. :)
The final exam was hard. I hope I did ok... After the midterm, I thought I bombed the class, but I did actually well. Hmmm... I really don't know how I did on the final. If everyone did badly, there is no problem even if I didn't do well. If everyone did relatively well and I did worse, I'm in a trouble. *sigh*
This psych class was a trouble-maker of the semester. I suffered a lot, but I ended up learning a lot. :)
Other classes were just fine.

I will quietly party at home tonight. ;P
Tomorrow I will go see Lord of the Rings with Fei and Eric. I can fit one or two more person(s) in the car.

Came to work and checked the temperature at 8am. Currently, it's -13 C.
No wonder it was so cold on the way.

I love this beautiful Christmas illumination from Italy in downtown Kobe.
It started to cheer up the people of the Kobe city after the big earthquake in January, 1995.
This illumination entirely covers several major streets and a big square in downtown Kobe.

While I got stressed out from writing the final project paper and was taking a break, I talked to Natsumi in WA last night. Since I never had a chance to talk to her after she came to the US, it was fun to get to know her life!

I am almost done with the Psych class that dipressed me so much.
Today our group gave a presentation, and the final project paper was due.
So much weight has been lifted from my shoulders. All I have to do now is to study for finals. *sigh*
I got a really good score on the 3rd lab report, so my grade for this class shouldn't be so bad unless I screw up the final.

Can't believe one final is coming up on Fri...

Illinois is dry this time of the year.
Since the end of November, this dry and cold weather has been troubling me.
My lips get so chapped although I try to keep my lips moistened with lip creams.

Movie of the year: LAST SAMURAI

I was speechless. I would like you to see this movie and feel this stunning piece.
Hence, here's a few words about this movie.

The beauty of the land of Japan,
The genuine demonstration of Samurai spirit/custom,
Struggle of "Bushido" against the wind of modernization.

The movie was superb.

Snow is piling up!

I submitted a new proposal of my project to Susan. I was afraid that I was trying to study something already well-known/established, but my t houghts were on the right track. She looked happy with my ideas. :) The downside is that I still have bunch of stuff to read before making stimuli.

One week from the first final exam...

I finally got an optical mouse! I have used laptops for more than 4 years, but I never bought a mouse for my laptops. It's so convenient!!! I should've bought it earlier...