My House is Clean!!!!

Well, I've decided to change the way I do titles. I used to make them all so you could read them as "Reflections: of... whatever" But that's getting really annoying. So I'm just going to write titles however I feel like it from now on. :-)

So anyway, yeah, I had a home party. It was good. I am totally wiped. I don't think I'll schedule a home party after a live again if I can help it. I felt like a zombie towards the end. But it was fun.



So here are some of the pictures from the party. 13 people came, 14 with me. It was a good number. There were even some new faces. And this might be the first time I actually knew everyone who came. LOL. At least their names.

Everyone really enjoyed the food. I'm glad it turned out well. Although it was very expensive to make tacos. Maybe because of all the fresh vegetables. Oh well. I'll try to make it cheaper next time.

I don't really have good A/C in my house, so we were doing with open windows and fans. Eventually a bunch of people went outside to smoke. It was actually cooler outside. So, Sing decided that we should eat watermellons outside. The bottom picture is everyone outside about to eat the watermellons.

EVeryone was pretty laid back for this party. They seemed to have fun, but most of us were tired. I'm really impressed at how hard Harumi worked. It's also really funny everytime I invite these people to my house. People like Kumi end up making theirselves at home. They do all the clean-up, and last night, they decided to make hot tea for Sing, and just helped themselves. It was really funny when they brought the tea outside and I was wondering what they were doing in my house. But I guess it means they feel really comfortable with me. And when I think about it, I have friends in America who would feel comfortable enough in my house to do those things too. So I guess this means I really have been accepted by these people. It's a nice thought.

But my home parties are always kinda bittersweet. Because there are so many people in a small space, it's kinda hard for me to have conversations. And there is SO much Japanese flying around my head. I think it was easier when I didn't understand as much Japanese. Now I can understand many words, but I still can't follow the whole conversation, so it's a bit more frustrating. But something I noticed last night was I've forgotten how beautiful the language is. Sometimes it's just nice to listen to the sound of the language. The more words you understand, the more you are trying to figure out what is being said. But when you just listen to the sound, it's kinda like music.

I probably could have participated more if I had tried, but I was really tired, so I just kinda took in everything. But each time I feel like I get closer to different people. So it's nice for that to happen.

The great thing about home parties: afterwards, my house is clean for at least a couple of days. And I always end up with food in my house. (usually I don't have food in my house. It goes bad before I can eat it.)

And Summer vacation is almost over now. I have this week left, and next week is a church camp all in Japanese and then a prayer retreat. After that is work. I was afraid I would be really bored during vacation, but it turns out that I was really busy. Partly because I agreed to keep meeting with my director during the vacation. But that's ok. I think I also had enough time to just not do anything either. It's a good balance, and a change from the normal. Good times.