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I think I have officially reached the stage of being homesick now. I've been here since September 11th of last year, with a little less than a month of a vacation back home in February. I think the main reason is that my schoolwork has reached an alltime high and I'm getting frantic. And I know for a fact that I'm not the only one.

So, one day in class when I found that I could not focus at all on what the teacher was saying, I decided to disctract myself with making a list of things that I've really come to miss since being here. And I thought I'd just share them with you.

Fruit (fruit is so expensive here)
People opening doors for each other (if you're walking behind somebody and they go through a door, they don't bother to care if anybody's walking behind them, and more often than not the door is allowed to shut in your face)
Steak (it's so thin and expensive here)
Baked potatoes with fixings
Sauteed mushrooms
Pie (oh my goodness, they have no pie here, and I'm going crazy. Of course, it doesn't help that people don't usually own ovens. Their cake is great, but it's so light that I can eat a whole cake by myself in one sitting)
Walking around campus (at first, funnily enough, I missed walking around UT than I did home)
Reading English (I really really really regret the fact that I did not have enough room to bring a couple of novels with me, because finding English books here is like trying to find a four-leaf clover)
Going shopping at the mall at home (I miss walking around window shopping for clothes that FIT me, what can I say?)
Going to the theater (I miss movies, and there are so many movies that I wanted to see, but couldn't because I was over here, and the theater is ridiculously expensive here)
Smoothies (strawberry smoothies...mmmmm...)
Freedom (Hah, unexpected, huh? I don't want a curfew anymore, I don't want to have to curb my social life because I have no real space of my own)
Internet (yeah...I'm only allowed one hour a day at my homestay, and the school kicks you off after 3 hours so I can't get any decent research done for my term paper at one time)
Breakfast tacos (the sausage just isn't the same here....)
Pancakes, IHOP (sob, pancakes!)
Waffles
Frasier (I love that show)
Meeting up with friends (and when I say friends, I mean REAL friends, the ones that talk to me and listen to all my complaining, sorry for that, by the way, guys)
Pizza ( a nice greasy, cheese and mushroom pizza with a deep pan crust...oh, yeah, none of this chicken teriyaki, mayonnaise, corn, and seaweed stuff)
Shopping for furniture (not necessarily to buy)
Butter pecan ice cream (ice cream over here is expensive like no other)
Pecan pie (need I say more?)
Wide open spaces (oh, how rare they are in Tokyo)
Singing while I drive (I can't sing to myself here, the walls are so thin everybody would hear)
Going to the office and visiting with everyone (I miss going to lunch with you guys! I'll have to drop in on you guys when I get back)
The farm (I really miss going down there with the family to visit...well, more family. To think all of my second cousins are probably all big now)

I'm sure there's more, but the bell rang, and I didn't have time to finish. And now I return to research on English language education in Japan.