Miso Ramen

I remember my first day at the kaikan dormitory. Walking in and setting my luggage down, it hit me! I am finally in Japan and this is going to be my room for a year. It was one of those surreal feelings, even now I always wonder if it happened or not. Luckily I have pictures to prove my sanity.

It was around afternoon time when my tutors dropped me off there. I had barely begun unpacking yet and my stomach was already growling. I wasn't too familiar with the neighborhood yet but I remembered passing by a 7-Eleven just down the street from the dorms. So I walked over there and stocked up on some munchies. Now forgive me but I had never cooked in my life before. Sure I'd fried myself up some eggs every now and then but I had never actually "cooked" a meal before unless nuking food in the microwave counts as cooking. Needless to say, my food choices were limited given my lack of cooking skills. But! at least I knew how to boil water, and I had a pot! hah! so I thought of preparing some instant ramen, the meal of champions!

I grabbed a pack of miso ramen, along with a bento box in case I failed at boiling water. Thank god I bought that bento box or else I would've starved that day. No, I didn't fail at boiling water, even worse, I failed at turning on the gas stove. Sad. REAL SAD. I also didn't know that in order to heat your bath water you have to set the control panel located besides the bathroom. So yea, that was just about the coldest shower ever. So my first day living on my own was pretty much a fail. There was no miso ramen for lunch that day, however! there was a lot of miso hungry and miso cold.

But in spite of all that, I just remember loving every second of that day and I made sure to never let myself forget that even when I'm cold and hungry, who cares? I'm in Japan!

Room #302, nothin but love for ya!

When Life Gets You Down…

While studying abroad I learned a couple key things about myself. I love being told that something is difficult or impossible; it’s like music to my ears. I crave a good challenge. I’ve learned to never let anyone tell you that something is impossible for you to achieve, because the only person who has any real say in that is you. Life is not a spectator sport, and you can’t always trust the ref’s calls, so get in there and try it out yourself! :) Get your hands dirty, make mistakes and don’t ever stop learning new things. Remember that failure is only momentary; take it as a sign that you’re actually putting effort into achieving your goals. You may be down for the count, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the game just yet.

Understand that some people you meet in life will only want to take you down to their level because they are unhappy with their own lives. Those are the people who try to build themselves up by knocking others down. Know your worth and let the haters hate.

Life isn’t easy. It’s not fair. Sometimes it’s damn right cruel. So that leaves you with 2 options. You can choose to be bitter, or you can choose to be better.

I’ve chosen the path of bitterness before, and it’s never quite worked out for me. Nope, it’s not a very productive use of time.

So now I’m choosing to be better. I’ve decided to go back to school and get a 2nd degree in something more marketable. This time around I’m going to do all I can to graduate with Magna Cum Laude… *giggity* XD sorry I can’t help myself! Anyways I think it’ll be a fun challenge to work towards.

The Descent... into Stupidity!

Ever seen the movie The Descent? It’s about a bunch of females who go on a cave exploration and become prey to the cave creatures lurking deep inside.

Living in Oita, there are a lot of fantastic undisturbed natural landscape, as well as a bunch of historic sites that still remains intact. So you’d be a fool not to take advantage of it and go exploring right? RIGHT!? Of course.

Along the path towards school, there are a couple of Buddha statues over hundreds of years old, carved right into the rocky hillside. Annnnd slightly to the right of that is a cave with a giant sign saying "Do Not Enter" blocking our entrance to a totally awesome adventure!

We had 1 good flashlight and a fail light from the 100 yen store (which was completely useless!) My friend Danielle went in first. The cave was small, narrow, and damp. It had to have been less than 6 feet tall and no more than 3 feet wide. We get pretty deep inside the cave before the ceiling starts to drop really low. By this time we’re both crouching by a pool of stagnant water blocking our path forward. Danielle hands me the good flashlight as we try and figure out what to do. So I start shining the light around to get a better look at the cave, and that’s when I saw it…

At first I didn’t quite know what it was, so I go “hey umm.. Danielle, what’s that thing by your face?”

Right behind Danielle, just above her shoulder, merely inches away from her head was this thing…

Ugh just looking at it still makes my skin crawl.

The thing was at least 7 inches long! It was spiky with many legs and it was glowing neon green/yellow and staring straight at her with hungry eyes!

At this point I tell my friend “it’s time to go!” and without thinking I turn around and start running, totally forgetting that I’m holding the good flashlight. As I get closer to the cave entrance, I realize my friend is nowhere in sight. From the darkness, I can hear her shouting “Diana, don’t leave me, come back! I can’t see! You have the good flashlight!!” ooops! Haha I’m so terrible.

When my friend finally makes it out, she’s completely covered in dirt from banging into the walls frantically trying to escape that bug.

So what's the moral of the story? The moral is that when the shit hits the fan, I will be the first to run and leave you by yourself in the dark without a flashlight.

Night by the Shrine

This one night in summer, some friends and I decided to go to the shrine to check out the fireflies. So we set out the mats and had a little picnic there. At first things were pretty fun. It was really cool and quiet out, and we were all having a good time. But then things started to get weird.

Around midnight we started to hear strange sounds coming from behind one of the buildings. It came quietly at first but then the noise got louder.

To me, the noise sounded like that of a child's laughter, an evil demon-seed child. My other friends thought it sounded like an old crazy lady chanting, or someone crying. At this point I'm pretty damn scared because whatever it was it was coming closer.

It was exactly like one of those situations straight out of a horror movie. And just like the movies, my 2 white friends suggested that we go and "investigate" the noise. I kid you not! that stereotype is so true.

Now.. there were 5 of us in all, 3 whities and 2 asians.

And me being the cowardly lion that I am, I started running towards my bike which was parked way across the bridge. The other asian ran too, we know better! I know my horror flicks, minorities always die first! As for the 3rd friend, she felt torn between fear and obligation. She wanted to run, but felt compelled to stay behind and clean up.

So what was the noise? they said it was a bunch of feral cats fighting. Demonic shrine kitties. Ok so I got scared off by a bunch of wild cats. Would it make me seem like any less of a wuss if I mention that I'm allergic to cats? no? ok T_T

Afterwards we stopped to eat at Jolly Pasta because nothing gets your appetite going better than fear. What an awesomely random night.

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.