No more excuses (Francis)

Yeah, so its been awhile... Quite a bit has happened at the Garcia-Giampietro abode since I wrote last (two months to be exact, yikes). After wifey and a friend who I hadn't seen in a very long time both commented on my serious neglect of this blog, I felt I should definitely update.

Let's see, Dahnya has covered just about everything. But let me recap in the hope that I might seem like less of a negligent blogger. There was graduation, the Thesis show (and all its various issues), thesis defense, Dahnya's new job, my folks coming down to visit, and the Japan trip.

Yeah, so the Japan trip was amazing. It was hard to leave Dahnya and the Sarge for two weeks but the experience was well worth it. It was quite the humbling experience to literally not be able to read any signage or much of anything else for that matter. Outside of Tokyo naturally most things are written in Kanji, Hiragana or Katakana (yeah they have three). So us two westerners were more than a little out of our frame of reference.

It was great to see my friend Keijiro again and learn a little bit about his culture and meet his family. If it weren't for him Jeremy and I would have seen barely a fraction of what we were able to with his expertise, patience, hospitality and meticulous planning. Kampai Keijiro-san. Here's some photos of the three amigos in Japan:

I also got quite a bit done, Jeremy (went on the trip with me in the middle rocking the sketch club t-shirt) and I will have a show in August at Lawndale Arts Center here in Houston. Some of the stuff will be in response to the trip.

But all shameless plugs aside, it was really hard to be a newly wed and be apart from your spouse. Even if it was only two weeks. This was the first time Dahnya and I had spent any sizable amount of time apart. Also, given the near entire day time difference it made internet chatting a bit difficult. I was waking up at 6am the next day to video chat with Dahnya when she got home from work at 4pm the afternoon before. It was nice to recap my yesterday and her today across the internet. It was a strange experience that never the less got my day off to an early start.

It was good to have this means of communication though because we weren't super optimistic about really being able to talk beyond email. Being able to video chat made it so I felt a little more connected with Dahnya as her last weeks teaching at Highland Heights winded down. Not being there while she started the transition from HISD to KIPP was something I would have regretted had I not been able to talk to her in some capacity. Yay technology.

On that note the official transition day is here. Tomorrow Dahnya starts her first day teaching at KIPP Academy. Wish her luck!