Power Outage

Whenever the power is out do you find yourself forgetting about the little things you can no longer do until the power comes back on? You try to entertain yourself by turning on the TV.. or perhaps microwaving up some food... oh yea no power. So you figure if you can't watch TV then you'll just pop in a DVD! oh yea that requires power too huh? oh well movies are boring anyway, how about playing some console games?...oh yea riiiiight.. no power.

Adjusting back to life here is like living through a power outage, except the power is never coming back on. I keep thinking that I can message someone and we can go hang out and go for a nice bike ride, sit by the river, or just go eat somewhere. But it's impossible to do those things anymore, and everytime I come to this realization it makes me feel a whole lot worse about being here. We're all back in our respective countries, thousands of miles apart from one another - tell Vanessa Carlton to write a song about that!

Home

I've just been bumming around since I've been back. It feels miserable being back. I'm lacking energy and motivation to do anything productive. One of the reasons for wanting to study abroad was to leave Charlotte, and just to get away from the place and the people here.

The situation in Charlotte is still the same, unfortunately. Same people, same excuses, same bullshit, all of which are still glaringly obvious. Nothing here ever seems to change for the better.

I know I shouldn't let myself wallow in this self-pity and that I should be proactive, but just being here in my room makes the whole study abroad thing feel as if it never really happened. I have to snap out of this or else I might undo everything that studying abroad has taught me which is that if you want something bad enough you will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

So what is it that I want?

I want to get the hell out of Charlotte and see my friends again.

Leaving

And so the day to depart from Kaikan finally rolled around. It rained the day I left, of course. I was unable to get any sleep for the 2 days prior to leaving because of exams and packing and I did not wish to spend my last hours in Japan asleep, rather I wanted to spend it with the people I might not ever get to see again.

The airplane ride was definitely a nice preview of the America I knew so well. I flew on United Airlines and those flight attendents must have big furry hamsters shoved very far up their asses because they were bitchy and irritable as hell. Seriously those United Airlines flight attendents were rude and snapped at everyone and acted like sunshine came from their ass.

"CHICKEN OR BEEF!?! HONEY WHAT CHU WANT!" God Bless America.

I'm back in Charlotte now. It feels as if the whole study abroad thing never happened, and that it was just a dream. I met up with some friends the first night I got back, and things feel the same, yet different, I just felt so very out of place. I'm sure the jetlag doesn't help my emotional state either.

I miss everyone at the Kaikan so very much and wish we didn't have to go our separate ways after becoming such close friends. It was never this hard leaving my friends in Charlotte when I went to Japan, and I've known them for so many years. So why was it so difficult to leave some folks I had only known for such a short time period? Because...

A goodbye isn't painful unless you're never going to say hello again

Keep that thought in mind and let us definitely plan to meet again sometime in life.

All Aboard the Emo-Train

Today is never the same as yesterday and tomorrow will never be the same as today. Sometimes you have a really shitty day and hope to never experience that day again. But then there are times when it’s great and you wish those days could go on forever.

I’ve done a lot of growing up while here in Japan. But in some aspects I’ll forever be a kid when it comes to goodbyes. I spent most of today bawling my eyes. I'm such a child.

Whenever it comes to goodbyes, you can always keep in touch through letters and such but it will never be the same again. You can never meet up face to face to just shoot the breeze. You can no longer talk about the plans on what to do for the upcoming weekend, and what to cook for dinner that night. Conversation slowly becomes more difficult and few and far in between. You soon find yourselves only talking about the past and reminiscing together about the good times gone by. But life still goes on, and you eventually become just a distant memory to one another.

Blame it on the circumstances of life.

I know this post is such a downer so I'll end it on a positive note. It doesn't matter where you are, or what you do, it matters most who you are with. This whole experience abroad would not have been as meaningful as it was without everyone here.

2 Weeks

No matter how full each day is it still doesn't feel like it's enough to stop me from feeling sad about leaving. In a way, I'm ready to leave Japan and go back home. It has been an amazing experience to live in Japan these past 10 months, but the time is coming for me to go back to America.

It's the little things which I will miss so dearly, like the bike rides out to the aquarium to get ice cream, or just bumming out by the river at night with the picnic mats. Even the bike rides to and from school were enjoyable regardless of the rain, wind, or the extremely freakishly hot weather.

But what made these outtings enjoyable were the people there. Being able to hang out with you guys is what I will miss the most about Japan. The memories I've made here will definitely stay with me forever.

Saganoseki Bike Ride

So on Sunday a group of us decided it would be a good idea to bike from Oita city to Saganoseki. We set off from the dorms around 6am and returned home at around 9pm. BEST. BIKE RIDE. EVER. Did the unnecessary usage of capitalized letters and periods emphasize the amazing experience enough?

At first we were a bit unsure of how things would turn out since the weather forecast predicted rain (of course..) and none of us had biked to Saganoseki before. But we made it! I believe we covered the distance of about 80 km (50miles) that day. We even made it as far as Usuki, by accident of course.
I've never biked so much in my life, we were practically on our bikes the entire day, except for when we stopped to eat and take photos and.. collect rocks/shells by the shore. The scenery there was really beautiful. The weather was nice as well, scattered clouds with light winds. It did rain briefly though, which is expected to occur during most if not all of our outtings.

And of course, we stopped by the local restaurant and got some ice cream! ice cream by the ocean with good friends just never gets old for me.

No indians, no chiefs, no drama! just friends.

Never Have I Ever

Never have I ever gotten drunk and decided it would be a good idea to toss noodles onto the walls, floor and ceiling of my dormitory apartment complex.

Guilty!

There's a good reason why I don't drink often, and that would be one of them.

This is the second time I've gotten really drunk in Japan. The first time was actually one of my first nights in Japan. It was at Mr. Kimura's izakaya; Geoff, Danielle, Mike, and Tuan were there. That night was pretty wild, we got lost trying to find our way back to Kaikan and I remember Tuan tossed up on the streets. Good times.

It feels like I've come full circle in my study abroad journey in Japan. I know it sounds silly to come to such a conclusion from a booze night out with the girls, but there's definitely some irony I find in all of this.

Allow me to elaborate without revealing too much information; It's the same game, but with different players. Sometimes its a swing and a miss! sometimes you swing and its a fly-ball, whooosh, right over their heads!

Anyways I spent this morning hung over the toilet bowl throwing up. Fun!

On a random note, the same jerk that threw noodles around the hallways also snuck into my room and spilled drinks all on my floor! RUDE! haha