Now That I’m Home

Now that I’m back in the US, I’m going to have a different blog since I’m not in Japan anymore. You can find that at…

Kansan Back Home

If you’d like, keep reading about my life back home!

I Tried

I tried to be somewhat positive for the last 2 blog posts, I really did. I can’t keep it up anymore.

I don’t want to go back more than ever.

Things are getting even better at school. I’ve made even more friends.

The guy I like? He’s been walking to school with me from the station (around 5~6 minutes at my/our walking pace) almost every day, and we talk.

And also, there’s a guy in my class now who apparently likes me.

Basically the time they chose for me to go home is maybe the worst possible. All of my friends are busy with studying for their midterms so they can’t hang out except for at school.

I have around 4 days left. 2 left in school.

I still haven’t started packing. Or writing my goodbye speech. But this isn’t just plain procrastination. I’m procrastinating in denial because I don’t want to have to go back.

Random note for those who don’t know or don’t get it yet: I intend on going to college in Japan. Not America. So even if I don’t have enough money by the time I graduate high school, whenever that may be, I intend on working until I have enough money to do so.

んなこたぁどうだっていいんだ

A Japanese title again! Which means I’m going to put up a song again, though I’m not going to translate. This time it’s the song おしゃかしゃま (Oshakashama) by RADWIMPS. The line that the title is basically impolite speech written down as it sounds. “nna kotaa dou datte iin da”, which would be a shortened form of the impolite form “sonna koto wa dou datte iin da”. Loosely translated, “That sort of thing doesn’t matter.”

But, before that, just a bunch of random things that have been going on.

So, Victoria bought all of Inuyasha. ALL of it. All 56 volumes. At the same time. It was awesome.

We started the experiment project for the Math and Science course second years. But you know what? Today was the only day that I’ll be here when they actually do the stuff. I go home before the next time they have school on Saturday.

New suitcase. Was on sale for less than half price. It’s huge and, in my opinion, nice. It was on sale because no Japanese person would buy it because they all want cute ones. Not plain grey ones. And it was either this or one of the ones only around $20 cheaper that are nearly half the size.

New haircut. Everyone else likes it, I hate it. This time the lady made my bangs too short, and cut the back of my hair and the layers too even though I said I only wanted to cut my bangs. I’m going to grow out my hair now.

Tried writing my goodbye speech during class. Not a good idea. I started crying.

Still have no clue how I’m going to pack away some of the more fragile/mess up-able things I have. Like gifts I’ve gotten from my old host family, and my multitude of posters.

I don’t even have 100 yen left, because I had to buy a new phone card and the suitcase and stuff. And I don’t have money to ride on the train, but my Suica ended. So I’m in a pretty big predicament. I have US money, but you have to go to a bank to change it. Japanese banks are open between 8 and 5, the time I’m in school, and only on weekdays.

It’s really hot. Even the Japanese people are saying it’s hot, which means I’m already dying.

Now for the song~.

The Things I Do Miss

Although they’re not numbered specifically in this order on purpose, I decided to list some of the things I do miss. I’m going to try and get to 10.

1. Performing. (Plays at PT.)

2. Chipotle.

3. Long days just sitting in my room on my computer and relaxing, chatting to online friends.

4. My old red room (though I can’t go back to that.)

5. Meat that isn’t half (or more) made up of fat.

6. DDR

7. Snow. Temperatures below freezing. Real winter in general.

8. The sound of thunder.

9. My Tamora Pierce books.

10. The sun not coming up at 5am… (Which wakes me up. Every day. Before my alarm goes off. No matter how late I stay up.)

The Thing People Don’t Get

Almost every time I told someone I don’t want to go back to America the response was “You can just come back to Japan again when you’re older!” (Recently it’s changed to “Yeah, Swine Flu is scary! Are you sure you’ll be okay? What if you catch it and die?”)

That’s the thing. I know I can come back when I’m older. I’m fine with that.

The reason I don’t want to go back is because of my friends here. Back in America sure, I had a few good friends. Not many I could talk to regularly. Here in Japan I have several times the amount of friends I had before, people I talk to all the time, who I eat lunch with, who will go out with me with little notice to karaoke simply because we have nothing to do… People I’m close enough with that I’ll let them hug me and hang off of me and such (which, despite what the internet says, Japanese people do do), which I wouldn’t even let my closest friends in America do.

I’m scared of going back to the US and losing contact with them. With any of them. A lot of them say they’ll mail me even once I get back, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before they start replying less and less until they end up not replying anymore. Even if I don’t lose contact, by the time I can go back to Japan they’ll all be spread around to colleges all across the country, and even if I can visit maybe one or two we’ll never be able to get together and spend time with everyone ever again.

It just makes it a whole lot harder at the start of the school year here where almost every week there’s some sort of thing that involves planning for an event later in the year. They come over to me and ask me what I want to do for it, or where I want to go, or what suggestions I have, only to pause afterwards and look at me sadly and say “Oh, you’re not going to be here then.”

There’s planning for the field trip the week after I leave, the Bazaar in October, their experiment group presentations in November (on my birthday), the trip to Okinawa next February… Even when they pass out prints or surveys about it I have to take it back up to the teacher blank because I’m not going to be there when it happens, and it hurts.

Yesterday I went and spent the night at my old host family’s house and then went to a festival up further north in Gunma today. It was really fun, and I got to spend time with them again. My old host dad offered to take me to Akihabara on the 10th (since he works there and knows the area) and I said I’d have to check about it, but I know I won’t have enough money to with dealing with baggage and everything else. And then when I had to leave it was like having to say goodbye to them when I switched host families all over again, except this time I don’t know if I’ll ever see any of them again. I was able to keep smiling and waving as the train went away but as soon as I couldn’t see the station anymore I started crying on the train and was being stared at…

I don’t want to have to say “bai-bai” or “sayonara”, goodbye to any of these people. I want to be able to say “mata ashita” or “mata ne” or “ja ne” (see you tomorrow, see you again, etc.) like I do every day, but there are so few days left I can actually say that and have it be true.

I still have to write my goodbye speech for the last day I’m at school. But I’m procrastinating because I know I won’t be able to get through it without starting to cry, but that’ll probably just get worse as time goes. I still have no clue what to write, either. I know I’m going to thank everyone, but I have five minutes to make the speech, and that’ll barely take up thirty seconds.

If I had known it would be this hard to leave, maybe I wouldn’t have come in the first place.

A Rant That Won’t Do Anything and a Bad Dream

This is the second time I’ve tried to type this. Unfortunately, when I tried to post the first time all of the text mysteriously disappeared. It seems like the internet is against me now, too.

Anyway, I had almost gotten to the point where I had accepted the fact that I had to leave on May 20th. Sure, I was still upset, but I saw it as a set thing and had finally accepted the reason that it would be inconvenient for the school here (although there is really no proof for that).

But then yesterday happened.

I was talking to Ricardo, another one of the exchange students at my school, and apparently he was told that he could stay at the school as long as he wanted to, even until graduation with his class. Simply because his exchange program/school in Mexico had said it was okay. Also, apparently he was told that if he didn’t like his current host family/they wouldn’t be able to host him long term the school would be glad to find him a new host.

So obviously it wouldn’t be an inconvenience to the school.

Obviously one, some, or many people are lying to me.

In fact, when the date had first been moved closer and I asked Murakami-sensei why he had said “Because Ruth said so.” Only recently has it become “It would be inconvenient.” Actually, now that I think about it, it would be a lot more inconvenint to have Ricardo stay, because his class is going to be going to New Zealand for one and a half weeks soon. Mine isn’t.

I want everyone to tell me the truth, or at least tell me why my day for coming back was moved earlier without any of this “it would be inconvenient” stuff. The cat’s already out of the bag people, so can you maybe try not lying to me?

Knowing that and thinking about a few other things, it’s obviously something/someone in the US that’s keeping me from staying. Way to make me not want to come back more.

So, after that horrible revelation, I went home. Then when I went to sleep, I had a bad dream. Probably caused by the fact that I was still upset about what I talked about above. (My host family and I had gone out for dinner and had a great time, but it still didn’t make me forget about it.)

Basically, it was the day for me to leave. Maebashi station, the train station closest to my house, had for some reason also turned into an international airport. So I rode my bike the 40 minutes there like I would on any normal school day. All my suitcases were already there, so it wasn’t a problem.

I had been sitting and waiting in the area just outisde the ramp to get on the planes when I realized I had forgotten something important (I don’t remember what). So I left the ‘airport’ (there wasn’t any security other than what there already is at the station) and headed outside.

Once I was outside I got a call on my phone. It was from Dani.

“Hey, Shelbs! Me, my mom and my dad are going to make it so you can stay in Japan!”
“But my flight is today…”
“Doesn’t matter! Get over here! We’re just around the corner!”

And she hung up the phone.

I started walking towards the main road, but I got another phone call. This time it was my grandma.

“Hey Sweetie, I’m waiting around the corner. Let’s go explore Japan!”

And the phone was hung up before I could even say anything.

This time I jogged out towards the main street, passing by most of my friends here in Japan, including the guy I like, though none of them even bothered to notice me or say anything.

When I got to the main street both of the cars I was looking for were on either side of me, a bit far away. While trying to decide which car I wanted to go to, or which I should go to, both started driving off in the opposite directions. I started panicking, but my grandma’s car was going a bit slower than Dani’s family’s car.

I started running after it, “Hey, wait! Stop! Please!”. Though eventually I lost sight of it.

When all of that ended I looked at a clock and it was almost time for my flight. But I took my time heading back to the ‘airport’, walking in just as my flight left. It seemed like just when I was walking up to the gate the guy at the desk next to the door to the ramp noticed I hadn’t gotten on, looking at me, down to my carry-on which I had left there, and then back at me.

He got mad, and came over and started lecturing me. I tried explaining how I had gone to get something I had forgotten, and then what had happened. He just got more angry, pulling back his hand to slap me. Right when his hand would have hit my face I woke up.

I think I’m going to look up dream analysis online.

Random Note:

I have a Twitter.

Tweets by simplesarcasm

文句ばかりだから、別に読まなくてもいい…

何回書いてもどうにもならないけど…

My New Class Schedule

Monday
1st Hour – Modern Japanese
2nd Hour – Gym
3rd Hour – Chemistry I
4th Hour – Math B
5th Hour – Health
6th Hour – English II

Tuesday
1st – Chemistry I
2nd – Modern Society
3rd – English II
4th – Ancient Japanese
5th – Math II
6th – English G

Wednesday
1st – Oral English
2nd – English G
3rd – Gym
4th – Math B
5th – Ancient Japanese
6th – Chemistry I

Thursday
1st – Physics 1
2nd – Math II
3rd – English G
4th – Modern Japanese
5th – Saturday Rotation
6th – Long Home Room

Friday
1st – Math II
2nd – Bible
3rd – Modern Society
4th – English II
5th – Physics I
6th – Gym

Saturday
1st – Math II
2nd – Modern Japanese
3rd – Physics I
4th – Math B

素直な気持ちは帰りたくないよ

Okay, the Disney Land post is in the works. It’ll be up eventually.

Since Disney land I’ve done many things. The day afterwards we went to a soccer game. School started up again.

I was able to be switched into the Science/Math Course! All of my new classmates are so nice. I already have more friends in this class than I ever had in my old one, and it’s only been the second day.

It’s been really hot lately. Around 26 degrees Celcius (around 78 Fahrenheit?). On the first day of being back at school I went to track practice after not going all of spring break. It’s hot enough that I really have trouble being able to run. I may actually end up quitting track, since I’m the slowest on the team anyway (including the junior high students) and most likely wouldn’t be able to actually run in any of the meets. Haven’t decided yet, though.

I also got severely sunburnt in that practice. Like, anywhere that my skin was showing is bright red and hurts really bad. I didn’t expect the sun to be that bad so I hadn’t prepared sunscreen and everyone else just had those really small bottles around the size of hotel shampoo that definately wouldn’t have been enough to cover my arms, the lower half of my legs, my face and my neck. Yeah.

Over all… I want to go home even less than ever. I have an awesome new class. I’m able to help my new host sister study German for when she goes on exchange from this next September. I’m finally actually happy instead of just being excited to be in Japan for the first time in a long while.

And that all gets taken away in 1 month, 1 week and 4 days.

Then I have to go back, deal with a summer break that I should have been spending most or at least half of still in Japan, then go to school in the US again…

I really don’t want to leave. Not when things have just started getting good. Not when I finally found some good friends outside of the exchange students.

I want more time. I want to go on the Science/Math course fieldtrip that’s 9 days after I’ll leave. I want to take the official Kanji test in June. I want to take the JLPT level 1 at the start of July. I want to participate in the sports festival before summer break. I want to spend a summer break in Japan. I want to experience the Kyoai bazaar again and have it be better than the last one. I want to take more of the tests and do my best to get higher scores here, even on the Japanese or the bible. I want to get another chance to watch Kyoai’s Christmas Pageant again since I had a seat where I couldn’t see at all last time. I want to go to Okinawa with my new class next February…

I want at least another year to redo all the things that didn’t work out right this last one. But I can’t. And even just thinking about leaving like this hurts so bad, so I don’t even want to think about when I actually have to leave.

Anyone who happened to read this until the end, thanks for listening to me whine. I just sort of needed to let it out.