|
Hello everyone! This post, which will remain at the the top of this journal indefinitely, is the index post. Inside you'll find links to all sorts of useful information in my journal, and some chunks of text explaining different things about me and about how to reach me if you have questions or comments.
With that said, let's ( proceed! )
|
|
A few final photos from Japan. I've only just gotten them off the camera, as various important cables have been lost up to this point, and it's very strange to look at them again.
For the record, I'm still conflicted about Japan, but I want to return, though if only to "try again" or out of some deeper affection, I can't say.
( Read more... ) |
|
It has been six months since I got home from Japan, and I don't think the injuries have quite healed.
I'm not sure what to say, to chronicle this. Those close to me know I'm still struggling to understand what I learned there, to face the guilt of "failing" my exchange. I don't know what to think, especially when every exchange student and Rotarian and layman I speak to seems to assume that Japan must have been the pinnacle experience of my life.
And it haunts me, in some ways. Everything comes back to Japan, and I wonder if perhaps it's just a symptom of this transitional year, when I'm between two huge experiences, drifting, with nothing to consider except how much it still hurts.
This blog, it holds records of the good times. The tiny, bright moments that I was able to drag up and show to the world. It doesn't mention the tears, the guilt, the loneliness as much. Perhaps that's preferable.
An experience, they call it.
I shift from feeling like it was something that happened to me to feeling incredible guilt for what I wasn't able to do in Japan. I wasn't able to win, to acclimate. Maybe it was impossible. I like to tell myself it was. Then it's not completely on my shoulders that I didn't have a good time.
Takata-sensei, the Canadian teacher, is moving on to work at a famous university in Tokyo. I still email with Yui and Kana occasionally. Eloise, too.
My Japanese is slipping. I wonder if I want to take it up again.
I wonder if I've failed. I wonder where I'll be in another six months. I hate this uncertainty and this... waiting and contemplating. I can do nothing but think.
But what am I supposed to think, when everyone succeeded where I just endured?
|
|
Most of my essays for college will be about Japan, so I thought I ought to post them here. Most of these are first drafts-- I'll update them when I edit them, and I appreciate suggestions greatly.
This first one was a practice assignment from my AP Lit class to write an essay from the common application.
( This one is pretty boring, and full of lies, but they get better. )
|
|
Well, I might as well say goodbye here. I'm home a good three weeks now, and it's been just as rocky and amazing as coming to Japan was. I suppose I should have some sort of wrap up post talking about how life-changing it all was, but... Not yet. I don't know yet how it's changed me, whether it was the "right choice" or not. People keep asking me how it was, and I say, "crazy" or "great," but they don't want the real story. In truth, it was the most difficult thing I've done in my entire life. It wasn't fun like people want me to tell them. It wasn't a blast. It was difficult, it was intense, and it was something I'm glad I did.
Maybe someday I'll look back on this, having forgotten the hard times, and be able to take some succinct little lesson out of my experience, but I kind of hope not. I don't really believe in things just boiling down to a neat little message. I think it far better to hold on to all the things I experienced, the good and the terrible, the fun and the depressing, so that I can really understand how this changed me.
They tell me I'm more adult now. I know I'm quieter, less childish. I think sometimes that I left a lot of things in Japan, some of them important, some of them less so. I'm excited to continue my life, but now Japan seems like a dream, like a blankness that ate up a year and spat me out unscathed. I know it's not true, but it's sometimes easier to just pretend I didn't miss so much.
And then someone mentions a movie I've never heard of or a piece of news that didn't make it across the ocean. I'll never be able to live the senior year my friends had, or the emotional rollercoaster they tell me the election was. I can only move forward. And that's a really good thing, I think.
I still think in Japanese sometimes. I talk to Eloise, and I'm going to study French so I can visit her. I'm helping out at the Japanese-American Cultural and Community Center's annual Nisei Week Festival this year, and it's kind of crazy since we all sit around talking in a pidgin of English and Japanese. It's like living my brain out loud, and I realize now that, yes, I'm fluent for all intents and purposes. Who would have thought?
Well, that's about it. I'll put up maybe one more post with photos later on, but if you want to keep up with my life, head over to my main journal, here.
So that's it. No goodbyes. I'll see you all tomorrow.
|
|
Eloise went home today, and I, being a true friend, got on the 5:55 AM train to arrive in time to see her off at Narita Airport. I cried a little, as did she, but overall it was more busy than anything else. I don't know if anyone I know will be able to make it to my departure, so y'all better be at my coming-home party.
5 days until I get on that plane. I can't believe it!
So, two quick things. No, wait, three, and I'm too lazy to go back and edit that like I should cause it's just too damn hot.
First, nothing ruins the mood one is trying to project when the song blasting from one's speakers is, in fact, Cotton-Eye Joe, no matter how much you boost the bass.
I love seeing scruffy old men holding babies. It conjures up images of some frazzled superhero-esque mother who had to run off to save the world and just shoved her infant into the arms of the first person she saw. Yes, I know that's sort of terrible, but it makes me smile. Most trustworthy hobo ever.
And, finally, bald people should eat ice cream all the time. It's adorable. Just adorable, I tell you.
|
|
It’s been a busy and emotional time since I last updated, and as it’s not through yet I’ll be brief.
In these last two weeks, I’ve been in a rush of packing and saying goodbye. I’ve got dates with friends almost every day this week, and there’s a lot of final goodbyes going around.
Today I hung out with my 4A friends: Yui, Hikari, Bikki, Kana, and Megumi. Later on Minoru turned up as well.
We took purikura and wandered around a shopping mall a bit, and when we got back to Yui’s house, we lazed around an waited for darkness so we could play with fireworks. To my surprise, it turned out to be a birthday party for me, complete with delicious vanilla cake.
Later, we went out to play with fire again, but it started to rain lightly fairly soon, so we quickly set off our biggest splodiest fireworks and headed home.
I didn’t cry when we said goodbye, though I feel like I wanted to. It just happened so fast. It’ll catch up with me soon, I know, but for now I’m able to put off the realization of how much I’m losing. It’s sad that just as I really get comfortable and excited to live in this place, I have to go home. No “I told you so’s” please.
The other day, I saw a gaijin asking for directions in the convenience store near my house and went over to offer some assistance. He turned out to be French, but his English was perfect, and he worried to be about the trials of living in Japan while I took him to the SoftBank store. His name was Geoffrey. I felt good to be able to help someone. I felt like a native, and when I went back to the store today, the smiling shopkeeper thanked me for helping out the other day. She and I know each other by sight, now. I wonder what, if anything, she’ll think when I stop showing up. I live here, now. It’s my home, and that scares me a lot.
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
gaijin_mage's journal