I am so so so so happy. Why? Well because I finally have family in the same timezone. Actually, in the same country. I can't go as far to say the same prefecture, but I guess I'll have to deal with that! Dereck's wonderful, awesome, and super fun sister Melissa moved to Japan the last week in July. She will be teaching English in a small mountain town about 3 hours away from us through the JET (Japanese Exchange Teacher) program. It was so amazing to see her in my country, in my Tokyo, and to know that saying goodbye didn't mean not seeing her for another year or more.
Melissa is a recent college grad who lived her whole junior and half her senior year in China. Dereck visited her last December but I hadn't seen her in... well.. just about forever. During her orientation for work she was in Tokyo for a few days and we got to have dinner and she even had time to see our house and a bit of the base. We hope to see each other once a month or so at least until the snow flies and travel might be more difficult in her mountain town. Upside to that is that she's near some a-maz-ing snowboarding and I hope to be there a few times this season too!
So that's my happiness. It might seem small, especially if you have always lived near your family, but for living the last 1.5 years thousands of miles from my loved ones, this is such a blessing. I'm already looking forward to Christmas... :-)
