ボッカ・プリン ...or That's Not a Water Balloon, It's Dessert

There was a weird looking tube sitting in my host family's fridge, filled with what looked like water balloon shaped mochi.

Well, after dinner (鮪丼 and a piece of 海老フライ) 母さん brought out the weird tube -- that, now that I think of it, vaguely resembles a canister of tennis balls -- and asked me if I would have some プリン (pudding) from Hokkaido. Apparently, you pierce the balloon with a toothpick and eat it with caramel sauce. Well, I've had water balloons explode on me before and let's just say that I did not want to be covered in pudding.

(Photo: Bocca Purin)

I chickened out on the first stab, but the second time I got it. To my relief, the purin didn't explode; the wrapper snapped right off, and I got to enjoy the most delicious purin I've ever tasted in my entire life. Admittedly, I haven't sampled a great many number of puddings, but this one was so creamy and delicious with the caramel sauce lending it just the right amount of sweetness that I feel it's safe to declare Bocca Purin among the best.

2nd Semester! ...or Back into the Crush of Classes

(Photo: Killing time between classes in the Bldg 22 PC Lab)

April 9th and we've just started our spring semester; it looks like I'm carrying about 18 units this semester - three SILS lecture courses (International Law, Comparitive Econ, and a Japanese Poetry class) at 4 units apiece, できる日本語６A (3 units), and three Japanese electives at 1 unit each - 大愚コミュニケーション５,発音４E, and 漢字５E. Because I'm taking 6 units of Japanese this semester, when the classes transfer back to the CSU they'll be bumped up to 8 units, pretty sweet deal.

FYI, the add/drop period for Japanese starts today and ends two weeks from now; the SILS add/drop period, however, doesn't start until next Tuesday and ends next Saturday. It's kind of lousy since you don't get much time to decide whether or not you actually want to stay in the class, but, interestingly enough, you have until the end of the semester to decide if you want to take a class as pass/fail rather than for credit!

I guess it's kind of nice to be back in classes again... but boy did I enjoy 2 months of vacation just doing whatever I felt like! >_<


(Edit: I'm a bad girl; I dropped 出来る日本語６A and switched into 4A instead. Because I'm lazy.)