Two weeks until I leave Forever.

Just kidding.

It's just four months. I keep telling myself that over and over again, but I don't think it's quite hit me yet. I doubt I'll really be able to know the effects of being away from everyone I know and love until I'm actually on the plane headed for Japan. Or until my parents leave. Or until I'm two weeks in, missing American food, wanting to speak English and wondering where the hell I got the idea to study abroad for a semester in the first place.

Oh well.

I guess I can honestly say I have no idea why I did this program in the first place... Sorry, Study Abroad Office, yes my entire application essay was a lie. Okay fine, not all of it. I do want to become more fluent in Japanese... but it was probably more the promise of Japanese food everyday than anything. Yum.

What will I see, what will I experience... I wonder at the differences between our two cultures (three if you count Chinese) and wonder if I could possibly find a mutual link between me and the places and people I will be seeing. It will be interesting, I think, to really understand if even in a totally completely different environment, with only a intermediate education in the language, I could somehow make connections with the people that will only see me as a foreigner (but a foreigner that looks like them... I wonder if that will be to my disadvantage there).

Self-imposed isolation? Maybe. I've lived my whole life wishing to get away for awhile. To be alone and truly, really, think about what it is I want and need and wish for to happen will be a blessing in itself. But I will miss home and my friends...

Ah... now that the time is almost near, I feel like I both want to and don't want to go. It will be bittersweet... but I will be back. I think at the end, four months will not be enough. Well, I guess we will see.

In video game terms, this is me in my hometown about to jump into a fateful encounter that will force me to leave my hometown on an EPIC JOURNEY INTO A FOREIGN LAND TO KILL THE BAD GUY. OH YEAH AND SAVE THE WORLD BY CATCHING THEM ALL.

Haha, I wish.

...No, seriously, I wish.



Currently reading: The Rough Guide to Japan