I've been feeling an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and homesickness lately, what with the Holidays coming up, considering that this will be the first time I will have spent them away from home and family. Just one more step into the "adult world," so to speak. I never thought I'd feel homesick, I've always been able to adapt up to this point with being away from home and not missing the family too much, but I don't think I've spent more than 2 or 3 months without seeing my parents. Kind of silly when I think about it. No matter how much I like to think I'm an adult, there's still bits of childishness trailing behind me, slowly but surely drifting further behind.
The homesickness has made me realize that, honestly, the life I lead here is closer to the same as in Portland last year than I had really anticipated. My regular schedule basically consists of wake up, breakfast, school, return home, do homework/study (or more realistically, slack off and end up doing the homework before class in the morning) then go to bed. Pretty exciting, right? The major differences between here and there are that:
-I live 40 minutes from school, as opposed to 5 minutes from class.
-I have no internet at home (Which will, hopefully, be remedied very soon)
-Japanese. Japanese.
And that last one cannot be emphasized enough. Though I am getting better at Japanese (at a snail's pace, it seems), it's still not to the point where I can hold very interesting conversations. I can talk about food, school, and other relatively basic matters, and when I do I occasionally get comments from native speakers that my Japanese is good... until I open my mouth to speak about something resembling an opinion other than whether I like it or hate it. At this point, I'm pretty sure they'd feel bad about taking back the comment, so at least I'm left with my ego intact.
I've degressed, and also run out of time... but do expect an update in the next few days about eating way too much grilled meat and being thoroughly exhausted from a karaoke all-nighter--my Thanksgiving plans. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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2 comments:
I hope you're feeling better. When I was at Waseda I found it pretty easy to forget the holidays were happening, mostly by drinking, eating, clubbing and going to the movies with friends. It must be constrictive living with a host family but get out when and if you can, and make sure you have a supportive group of school friends, who I'm sure have similar feelings about the upcoming season. Keep your chin up!!
I just tried to find your email address on your page but couldn't seem to...anyway I was going to ask if you had found the small room in the main library where you can plug in your laptop. I never had any connection problems there.
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