Living in Japan, up to now

So since I’ve discovered Memiary, I’ve become less and less motivated to post to Tumblr. And I haven’t done one of my video or audio blogs (personal reference only… you won’t be cursed by my speech or image anytime soon… unless you frequent my Flickr) in months. But every once in a while (I like how every sentence I’ve written so far has begun with one of those words they told us to NEVER start sentences with, back in middle school. I also just ended a clause with a preposition. And wrote a mini-paragraph within parentheses. TAKE THAT, MRS. GREEN), it’s good to update with some real reflections and thoughts about my life. At least future me will appreciate it.

I’ve preeeetty much gotten the hang of being in Japan by now. Though I’m still hoarding my recyclables (they took away the recycle bags?! Where am I supposed to put them?!) and am living off cold tofu and noodles (though truth be told, this was all that I made myself when I was back home too). But I’ve been steadily making more and more local friends, and I still haven’t had a real “what the heck am I doing here… OH I WANNA GO HOOOOOOME!!” moment.

Having a car has also helped quite a bit. Now I’m more motivated to take trips, and I’ve even forced myself to go buy ingredients to make something WARM for a change (that is not pancake sandwiches… delicious as they are). It’s also great for my health, because now I will no longer be in risk of colds when I run normal errands.

Work is pretty good, except when I’ve got nothing to do. Though I still feel like I don’t belong in the workplace. I’d like to get involved with some club activities… but I also really value my free time, so I’m quite stuck between the two ideas. So I’ve just been vagabonding a few clubs once in a while.

I’d also like to be in on the office conversations and all that, but the language barrier really is something. Classes haven’t started yet, but we have to go into the office or take paid leave, so teachers are just chilling in the office and chit-chatting if they don’t have legitimate work to do. They often go out for lunch or order it together, and I’m not sure if it’s incredibly needy to try to jump in on every incidence of lunch-having now. People have kind of settled into the fact that I’m there, so no one is taking care of me that much anymore… which is a liiiittle sad because I still have no idea what’s happening most of the time (though I DO get these sudden moments of crystal-clear understanding).

But otherwise… it’s been a GREAT experience so far. I’m treating this first year as my get-used-to-things year. Next year will be for REALLY exploring and trying to figure out what I want to do when I get home. But with how quickly 5 months have already flown by… I don’t know if I’m going to have to break the goals for next year up into two years. Maybe that will have to depend on the US economy.

So yup, that’s life up to now. Hopefully, the next update on this won’t find me an emotional wreck, sobbing about wanting to go home.