When I'm Stressed, I Write

I wish I were good at journaling. I wish I were one of those people who loved to write, loved to record all the interesting events in their life, all their thoughts and impressions. Sadly, I'm not. I'm lazy. When I do write, however, is when I'm feeling stressed about something. Which is exactly why this blog had a fair number of entries at the beginning of my stay here in Japan, and now an increasing frequency of posts here at the end. I spent a fair amount of time tonight scheming up ways that I could possibly stay in Japan. Some of my ideas included: 1) Pray that my successor decides not to come, and by luck reclaim the position that is rightfully mine. 2) Ever-so-slightly misinform my successor, so that s/he believes s/he is coming over to a living hell and will thus cancel his/her plans, again allowing me to stay fat and happy here on my throne. 3) Move to Okinawa. This is mostly just an Okinawan joke I like to toss around in my innermost thoughts. It's not serious. But it could be if I wanted it to. The funniest part is that I recently received a proposal, via text message, from one of the guys I met in Okinawa a few months ago. It read, "You will marriagh me!" Stunning. Really, I don't know what I'm doing still sitting here on my butt in Toyama. Give me a ticket for an aeroplane. Ain't got time to take a fast train... Kohei-is-job just wrote me a letter. Text message. Whatever. So that's option number three... Move to Okinawa, marriagh with Kohei, and live the rest of my days helping run his yakisoba shop and giving birth to his large Okinawan babies. Somehow, options 1 and 2 seem more appealing to me...(Did I mention Kohei wants to be cock? Yes, cock. Ok, ok, he meant cook... But I get the feeling it was more a Freudian slip than a spelling error.)

Anyway. As you can see, all my ideas suck, and I'm clearly going to have to return to America, as was originally planned. So, I'll continue with my reflection/processing exercise.

Things I Will Miss About Japan:
2. My friends. I think I got really lucky, getting placed by chance in the same prefecture as all the lovely folks I have come to know. I've met some really wonderful people, and my time here would have been rather dull without them. This obviously is especially in reference to Kelly and Ann, my two favorite Himi-jin and all around best galpals. They understand my quirky, sometimes over-the-edge sense of humor; they listen to me when I need to talk; they love crazy adventures and meeting new Nihonjin as much as I do. They're the icing to my cake, and I guess one good thing about going back to the US is that they'll be there too!! We can commiserate without having to skype long distance when no one we talk to at home understands why we use words like "chotto," "chigau," and "daijoubu." Or when we simply can't speak Engrish. I mean English.

Things I am Looking Forward to Returning to in America:
2. The bee-a-u-tiful weather (specifically, in Hawaii). Living in Japan taught me a lot of things about myself, and one of those things is that cold weather and I don't mix too well. I handled the winter, and because it was my first experience with snow, I even really loved it at times. But then the snow would start to melt and mush with the dirt on the road and people's footsteps would ruin its serene beauty and then it would turn into ice and I'd slip and I hated it. So yeah, I'm looking forward to the picture-perfect climate of that place otherwise known as Paradise. I realized this when I went to Okinawa, and my body began to thaw from its three-month-long ice age. Okinawa smelled like the tropics, looked like the tropics, and most importantly, felt like the tropics. My body was in its zen state. The perfect weather is one aspect of Hawaii that I had seriously taken for granted up until that point. I'm glad I realized how foolish it is to live any place where the word "underwear" is paired with the word "long" for a third of the year. The only way I like my underwear to be is minimal, thank you very much.

My Favorite Memories in Japan:
I'm trying to go somewhat in chronological order here, so that I am less likely to forget something. Memory shout-out number two goes to my first weekend trip with the friends, to Tokyo for Sarah's birthday. It was a three-day weekend, so we were able to get a lot out of it. We went to a beer festival in Yokohama, an awesome club in Shibuya which we stayed at until dawn (no exaggeration), an amaaaazing Sumo tournament, and we stayed at my very first hostel! To be honest, at the time, it was still so damned hot and I was still so unused to Japan that it was all a bit overwhelming. I was having fun, but I was only blindly following the group and pretty much flying by the seat of my pants. At that point, Tokyo still scared me. But, it was a good chance to see that getting away on the weekends was a totally viable and really fun option, and it was the first time that I really started getting to know Sarah, Michael, Katherine, and of course Ann, who at that point I was pretty sure was too much of an independent free-spirit to want to be my friend. Haha. Good thing she proved me wrong... :-) Anyway, yes, Tokyo was a blast, and I'm so glad I'm going back one more time before I go!! Shibuya, here I come. And I'm bringing my lady friends with me. Watch out.