It's about time, shouldn't have left you

It's unbelievable how fast time passes when you're having fun. Since my last update I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to tell about all the things that I'm doing. Now, let me summerize quickly why I couldn't update my weblog for so long. First of all, at the beginning of december I worked on a French-English translation project together with an Irish girl (who studied in Brussels and is thus fluent in French) and a French guy. We devided 180 pages among us three, so that each of us had 60 pages to translate before Christmas. It was a job offered by a researcher of Waseda University who wanted to have this book translated that was written by a Laotian somewhere in the 1940's - 50's in which he commented on all the injustice and extravagance displayed by the French occupation. The project was very interesting and lucrative, but also very intense regarding the short-term deadline.
Directly after finishing that, I left for Osaka to meet my parents and my sister who visited Japan during the holidays. For about two weeks I guided them through Kyoto, Nara, Tokyo and Kamakura. It was lots of fun, and a good excuse to forget about any other work that I could have done. However, the result was that when the last weeks of the first semester started, I had to pick up the classes, the studying and the homework right away, which I must say wasn't very easy. On top of that, exams were coming at the end of January, accompanied by papers and ever-continuing Japanese tests. So that was another stressfull period that I was happy to leave behind me in February.
Another more joyful reason for me not updating my weblog is that I met a wonderful girl here with who I'm together now since 18 december. Her name is Eriko Ohno, she's studying pedagogy, mostly of English at Waseda University and she seduced me by showing me the magic of music and drama during the performance of 'Fame' by the circle (club) of Waseda that she's part of. So in between and during those busy periods I spend most of my spare time with her. She also accompanied me, my parents and my sister in Tokyo and the two of us went on a trip to Hong Kong and Thailand from 11 until 23 of February. A wonderful trip, of which I will write more later on.
Actually, even though I wasn't writing, I had so many experiences, discoveries and new ideas I wanted to write about, that I have quite some catching up to do. Now that I have a long period of holidays (until the beginning of April, yes, that's a very long time and no, I don't know why either), I hope to be able to finally write down some of the things I've been thinking about and tell you more about my experiences here and in Hong Kong and Thailand.