I’m currently holed up at home with big, painful chipmunks cheeks. I got all four wisdom teeth out on Thursday and they seriously refuse to get better. This week was our spring vacation and I did nothing fun. Last Saturday to Monday, I was in Chicago for a job interview with amity (which I will write about later). I found out that working in a big eikaiwa probably isn’t my cup of tea, but I had a lot of fun in the Windy City.

My parents are actually both from Chicago, and I have family there, but it’s the first time I’ve been there by myself as an “adult.” On Sunday morning, I went to Millennium Park and ran into a guy taking pictures with his Canon DSLR, and he knew how to use my Nikon FM so we took pictures together for an hour or so. I’ve never really run into people who know a lot about photography, especially film, so it as really fun. Later that night I met up with a friend from school and his friend who was living there. We got dinner together and wandered around downtown. And finally, on Monday, I met up with yet another friend and went shopping on the Magnificent Mile. I love the Forever 21 they have there. It is huge and amazing and omg.

Anyway, I’ve found that I really like big cities. I know a lot of people hate how busy and crowded and fast-paced they are, but somehow all that energy really gives me some sort of inner calm. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. Like somehow I am energized by everything going on around me, and I feel less restless. I really think I am one of those people that needs to have constant stimulation or I go a little nuts. I think that was why I liked Tokyo so much: it was a city that quite literally never slept. It could be 4 in the morning and I could get up and take a walk, pop into a convenience store, go to karaoke, or something.

When I applied to colleges, most of the schools I applied to were in cities, but I ended up going to one that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. So I’m glad that this go round, I get to go to a school that is pretty much in the middle of Honolulu. I think it might be hard for me to focus at first with everything going, but I’m hoping all that energy will help to keep me going, like it usually does.

(And yes, this means I ended up deciding to go to Hawaii for graduate school.)