In the past week I’ve heard “where have you been?” a few times. Both in relation to physical me and computer mediated me. I guess I brought busy back with me from Japan. I guess before going, my activities tended to be solo. I could do them as I pleased and this often involved decided not to do them and staying home and surfing the Internet and feeling guilty.

In Japan I became involved in clubs and I did things organized among groups of people. To back out is to not just back out on yourself but on others involved. But I never saw this as “obligation” – more like “support”, and I really liked it.

Here, I have also become involved in activities with group participation and it has been great. But it does keep you busy. For example, this weekend I am going to the island for a karate tournament. I don’t think I would have gone if I didn’t have the elbow of one of the club members in my rib. Now I am excited!!

But that’s not what I came here to write about! I was going to talk about our babies:

Yes that’s right, last Wednesday we had a pumpkin carving night at the Kommune.

My pumpkin has a wide smile and tongue sticking out. I don’t know what I was going for totally but, I had this slanty-shaped pumpkin and there was something comical and grinning about it. I also felt that its personality was more canine than human like.

Though in the end, there was nothing really dog-like about it. The guys showed me the technique of not carving all the way through so that you can make highlights and shading. I tried this in a number of areas but I think next time, I have to carve a little deeper.

And here is our family in front of the house. They had already taken their first victim but luckily, he resurrected…maybe because he’s filled with Halloween spirit.