A Quarter Century

My second birthday away from home, but with friends dropping wishing me well from back home, it feels like part of that home also moved with me to Japan.

I did my b-day party at my place in Japan on Sunday. Invited out the international students and friends over... and the nice thing about having roomies is that they're already at the party. Well that's not entirely true, we still have to coordinate our schedules; for we are busy people.

All in all, there were about 14~15 people that day. I whipped up some honey lemon chicken, soy-sauce style chicken (there was a deal on chicken at the grocery store that day), humus, seafood pasta and a Banana-Pineapple cake for dessert.

If there was one problem for the party, it's that I didn't make enough food. All of the main dishes were gone in the first 30~45 minutes. The international students crowded around the food table and the rest of the other people not too keen on "fighting" with the crowd hung back and didn't end up with much food to eat.

I did get a nice T-shirt, a huge round thing of chocolate, a French dessert cookbook with extra recipes from Nadege (my very cool French friend) and a bottle of 10-year-old port wine (that tasted ever so good). I started preparing for the party at 1 pm that day; it was worth the effort.

On Tuesday, the eve of my birthday, I dropped home right after teaching English in the evening to catch some sleep. At 11:30 pm, Kuni and I headed off to the local convenience store to pick up some booze at the dollar store (crazy no? And they're open 24/7!!!). When I returned, I was surprised to find Sachie over as well with a bottle of Champagne. We popped the Champagne at midnight and celebrated my birthday at midnight. I got a dessert cookbook :) I couldn't have asked for more...

But wait! There's more!

On the Wednesday, we had a lab meeting scheduled and I asked the assistant professor if I could sit this one out and report in the day before. At first he told me that the main professor might not be happy about it... the problem was that the meeting was scheduled with 2 days notice... but I managed to book it off anyways. These guys ought to learn to take it easy sometimes; then again, I might be taking it too easy but that's a different story.

So I did take the evening off, came home and went out with Kuni, Olympia and Sachie for dinner at an Italian restaurant for a b-day dinner. 3 birthday parties!?? Wow, I've aged 3 years in the span of a week! Sachie made me a cake and I got a really nice white-green sports jacket. Awesome.

So now, I'm 25-- quarter of a century old and half way through my twenties. Another 5 more years and I'll be 30. Back home, I used to worry a little about what I might be when I got to 30. I'm now in Japan and people could be 29,30 or 31 and more and you couldn't tell. Age is a relative thing and all that matters is how you feel. And today, I feel great!