"Uh-huhuhehuh ... he said extend"

I looked in my mailbox (have learned not to call it "pigeonhole" as for some reason the American students find this hilarious ... grrr bloody Yanks, grrr our language in the first place, grrr) today to find an official-looking letter from Kansai Gaidai saying that my application to extend my stay into the spring semester has been accepted. So this is now a real year abroad. Aside from the short homecoming over Christmas, that is. My folks are going off to a skiing holiday in Andorra between Boxing Day and the New Year, so I get the house to myself for a large part of the three weeks I plan to spend there. I'm not especially bothered; skiing doesn't really strike me as my thing, and I will be able to finish off the turkey on my own. After six months in Japan, eating a piece of meat bigger than one of my fingers fills me with a strange and uncontrollable fascination. It will be mine. All mine, I say.