Long Day @ School/Pan & James Special

I did not have to go to the driver's license school from in the morning today , so I did my yoga in the morning and took care of some personal needs (ironing shirts and such)...I made my obento (dinner box) and left the house at noon to catch the shuttle bus to the school.

I had 1 last driving lesson, which I needed to pass to take the first stage examination on coming Monday. Well, I passed it, so I could applied for the exam today, and was asked to attend a "6 hr", I say it again..."6 HOUR" lecture afterwords. Phew, I came home at 8:30pm after the long arse lecture, but surprisingly, I am not so tired...Well, so what is waiting for me next is the first stage driving exam, and if I passed it, I will write the written test. If I pass both physical driving and written tests, I will get my temp permit on Monday!! and will start my driving practice on the official road. haha!

So it seems all is going well. :) So I am pleased with myself. I do not have any driving lesson nor lecture tomorrow, but I think of wakingup early to take the written test practice. Will see... :)

I have FINALLY uploaded some files of Pan & James for you guys.

This time, Pan & James travelled to Okinawa, which is the southern part of Japan (very warm and has tropical weather), and their assignment was to buy one Japanese vegetable (goya) and pack of brown sugar for Oba-chan (auntie). Please note: the first two video clips may require you to have the Windows Media Player. But the rest may not. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause..The best is to watch themusing the Internet Explorer..

	Introduction of Pan & James's trip to Okinawa. Pan meets up with the zoo keeper, Mr. Shimura, who takes him to Okinawa.
	Apparently, Mr. Shimura took Pan to somewhere else 3 months ago. Do you think Pan will remember Mr. Shimura after 3 months of notseeing him?? They will explore the city Okinawa together.
	Pan & James go for their shopping mission. 8'45" in length, but worth watching, cause they are super cute :) Check outPan shows off his Okinawa style dance :)
	Pan hates big animals like cow. His partner, James all of a sudden runs away from Pan towards this huge cow. Now, find out what Panwould do in a situation like this...
	Pan's chimpanzee nature is revealed when he gets on the bus. Check out his kind attitude, allowing eldery to sit on his seat too :)
	After a long day's shopping mission, Pan gets quite tired and takes a break, but remains tired. James surprisingly offers Pan a ride! but do you know how??!!

And here is me with the lip stick that Dawn gave me :) I think it looks great on me :)

Thanks very much, Dawn!!

P.S.
Do you people like my earrings?? ;) ;)

Hmmmm-Day off from school

Since started attending my driver's license school, I have been quite busy. But finally I was able to take a day off today! Also, I came home early in the afternoon yesterday, so I spent over 8 hrs yesterday to complete the manual for the lecture that I am going to give in less than a week for new employee training of a known engineering company. When I accepted the assignment, I was not sure if I would be able to meet the needs/expectations from the HR of the company, but now that I know what I will be covering in the training, I feel positive about it :) yay! Thanks to a great help from my friend, I was able to submit the final draft to the university this early afternoon. So I chilled looking at the garden enjoying the great weather for a bit.

In my last comment, I made a note re: the crow that my dad is keeping as a pet... Haha, today, the pet had 2 visitors in the afternoon! I think it was its parent and sibling. When I tried to take a photo of it, one of them flied away, so my photo only show 1 visitor, but here it is:

I really REALLY hope that the number of visitors will stay low though. I mean, I do not want to see millions of crows visiting the pet around my house, you know? lol

My family and I went to the moon light temple to make a visit on gravestones of my ancestors in the afternoon, and then I went to the gym to work out. But gowd, my allergy reaction to the pollens (hey fever) was quite aweful today. I kept sneezing, and my throat got very sore. I hope that my symptoms will get better....

Feeling VERY SPRING right now :)

Not so long ago, I received an Easter cerebration package from my respected friend full of yummy chocolates and boxes of my favorite refreshment, TEA! etc (THAANK YOU x2!!). I then received a few CDs made by my sweet friend Ange, which widen my music collection :) (THAANK YOU x2!!)

It is very wonderfully thoughtful of them, and I was feeling very warm inside as of recently. Then wow, I received this package from my new friend, Dawn today, full of great cosmetic stuff and GREAT MUSIC (LOADS of CDs)!!

I was overwhelmed with her thoughtfulness, so I had to take a photo! (Sorry, I ate most of the chocolates..haha~)

I, hereby, would like to express my immense appreciation to her. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!! I tried the lip balm on my dried lips (change of season makes my skin get dry) after opening the package. It's wonderful!! and I can't wait until tomorrow morning to put my make up on :) haha It's great being a girl. I feel wonderful having able to explore human beauty thru a lot of things: make up, working out, choosing an outfit and earrings of the day, taking a candle light bath listening to great music...I also appreciate the great weather as of today (can you believe that today's temperature rose up to 25 degrees? although we had freaking SNOW on MONDAY??), seeing the color of pink and green (blooming cherry bloosom tree) here and there... :) I feel lucky having able to exercise under great weather, feeling the warm wind and sun light on my body..and letting the music take me on a great mind-journey now that the weather has gotten quite warm....

Oh, more reasons to feel HAPPY: one of my fav artists, Dylan Drazen has his new deephouse mix available online. It's been a while since he put a deephouse mix, so this is very exciting to me. I also received such great news: my best friend is given a DJ gig at Sonotheque in 3 weeks!!! He will be performing along with Anthony Nicholson. :D woo hoo~! I so wish I will get to see him perform live..but my spirit will definitely be there, my Friend. You go Boy!! Ganbatte-ne!! :)

As for me, I am doing well. I am to be honest a little tired that I think of going to bed in a few minutes as the clock turns 22:00. But I want to make a note how I had a great conversation with my grandma talking about my thoughts on near future move (away from Japan) and hearing stories of WW2 (how she survived it) tonite. We both shed some tears while talking, and I felt so blessed having my own grandmother healthy and able to share some precious stories with me. I hope I will be able to take sometime to write down some of her stories, so that the stories will be left behind and pass onto newer generations to remind all of us how lucky we are to have all that we have...

Okay, gotta sleep. Oh, another thing. My dad is keeping a crow as a pet since 1 year ago or so (according to my mom). This crow was captured with my dad's hope to teach it how to speak Japanese, and to this date, I have not heard a single word that sounds like Japanese (it speaks differently based on his mood though..lol).

Anyway, the crow is kept in a cage, and we feed some food and water (its favorite is fries), right? Well, the other day, my dad all of a sudden came to the living room, where I was doing some work, and he was like: "Kumi, come quickly! but stay quiet." I followed him and watched towards the direction he was pointing at. Surprisingly, the parent of the crow was having a visit on its baby. LOL Apparently, the parent makes frequent visit, checking up on how its baby is doing and all..but it was my first time seeing the crow family having a tearful union with each other..lol So I thought it was cool.. Okay. bye :)