The Night before

This is my last night in America! I find myself almost not wanting to leave, mostly because I’ve had so much fun saying goodbye to everyone! I’ve made some amazing new friends and caught up with some old ones. Its 3:21 am, in 12 hours I’ll be getting on my plane, and 13 hours after that I’ll be getting off it. I’m almost finished packing and I have no intention of going to sleep.
There is no moon tonight and the stars look amazing. I still don’t feel like I’m leaving in the morning. I feel like tomorrow I could go hang out with kateland-san again, or go get another cookie with Ashleigh. I suppose it won’t hit me until I’m in the airport itself.
Part of me feels awful about leaving. I’m starting to reconsider my previous plans for my college carrier. It’s an ambitious plan but it doesn’t leave much for my social life. I think I’ll cut back; I really want to be here in America more than I originally planned. I made that plan when I was alone, and now that I’m not I don’t know that I want to be away. I think I will handle it just fine, but I don’t know that I want to.
This being said I still think this summer is a good idea, and one I can look back on. I’m very excited to see Yasuko, to live on my own, and to have a roommate and dorm-mates. Of course I’ll have the internet and I’ll keep in touch and two months isn’t that long, I go that long without seeing most of my friends half the time anyway.
This isn’t really a very productive or elegant post, and I considered not posting it at all except that I feel that it is relevant to the journey.

Introduction

“I cannot remember a time when I didn’t want to learn Japanese. Before I knew anything else in the world that I wanted I knew I wanted that. I’m sure my obsession with the country began out of a love for anime, as with most lovers of all things Japanese. But from that simple introduction something more powerful grew. I don’t want to go to Japan because I used to love Sailor Moon, fanatically, nor do I want to go because I love Final Fantasy, also somewhat fanatically. I want to go because I want to experience firsthand the strict beauty of the tea ceremony which so captivated me at the young age of 10 that I convinced my closest friends to build a tea house in the nearby corn field (which my mother promptly put to an end). I want to go because I want to learn from those who know best how to cook the Japanese meals that subtly play with your taste buds without ever overwhelming them and how to present those meals in such a way as to tempt the eyes with the richness and contrast of colors and artful arraignments. I want to go because I want to learn to throw myself unhindered into what I do with as much determination and strength as do the people who live there. I want to go because it’s the only thing I’ve always known that I wanted to do. ”

These were the introductory words I wrote to convince some anonymous panel of judges that I deserved to fly half a world’s distance and stay in a place I’ve been fascinated about since I was a child. This summer I go to Japan. This will be the first time I have ever truly left the country (I don’t really think Canada counts), and it will also be the first time I set out on my own, without the shelter of my family. It will be hard, undoubtedly, but all the more worth it for that struggle. I write this blog for those I leave behind, and for myself, in some future place, to look back on and smile.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine