あけましておめでとうございます

Happy New Year, everybody!

transience in red and gold

Merry Christmas!

It's so easy to forget that the Christmas season does not start on Black Friday, or even on December 1st, but rather on December 25th. I hope you all had an excellent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and that this holy octave finds you filled with peace, joy, and renewed spirits.

coming up...

I have a lot of photos to upload and share with you, and I promise I'll get to it as soon as I possibly can. By way of a verbal preview, there will be some nice late-fall leaf and water photos, and some sparkly Christmas-light pics.

This weekend-- how can it be 10:24pm on Sunday already?-- I went to Matsuyama on Saturday and sat for the JLPT N1 this afternoon. It was a very intense couple of days. And although the test is in a scantron-like format, the results are withheld until mid-February. So yay, celebrate the end of the test and forget about it for a couple of months!

because it's almost friday

I like Matisyahu. At least, I like his music. Much as I chafe at the vagueness of "Happy Holidays," I think this is a pretty good video and a very catchy song.

Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish brothers and sisters!