1/11/2012

So, I told everyone that I would be putting pictures up here, and I think I put pictures up a total of... oh, once. But in my defense, I made this huge, beautiful blog post, and the next day I looked at it eagerly, waiting for comments... and nobody had commented. Neither did they comment the next day. Nor the next.

OR EVER, YOU GUYS.

Now, I'm not going to say it's y'all fault that I haven't updated since then BUT IT'S TOTALLY YOUR FAULT but ever since then I kinda lost the interest in it.

Anyway, since then I realized the most daunting part of writing here is mostly because adding pictures on here is troublesome, especially since I have tons of pictures now that I've been in Japan for three or four months. So I want to try writing more with less emphasis on pictures and more on my experience here.

--
 So, updates.

I've been thinking a lot lately. I feel like four or five months (a semester) is enough time for someone to change significantly, and as this semester is coming to a close (Japanese school systems end at the end of January), when I thought about how much I had changed, I felt disappointed, because I didn't feel as if I had changed at all. But now that I look back, I've really changed a lot.

When I first came to Japan, I cried a lot because well, frankly, I had jetlag, and 2, I realized that I was all on my own. I've never been so far away from my parents that I couldn't just call up and say "I wanna go hooooommmme!" and they couldn't come get me. But in Japan, well, it costs more money than my first car (will be? I've never actually bought a car before, since the plan--that always got pushed back--was always to come to Japan) to go home. And what can my parents do if anything bad happened? Well, not much. *I'm* the expert on Japan in my family, and if something terrible happened, *I* would be the one to know how to deal with it our of anyone in my family.

It was really scary to suddenly realize, along with a healthy dose of the feelings of apprehension that comes with a lack of sleep, that I was, in a sense, on my own. Yeah, I had my friends but... I had to realize I was going to be in this strange country for the next 11 months!

Anyway, I've realized that I'm not as scared of that. The crying wore off after I was done being jetlagged and I worked out a budget.

I mean, there are a lot of different ways I've changed significantly in the past few months, such as how I view myself, how I view relationships, how I view people, and heck, even how calm I am compared to how calm I was in America. So really, I'm happy with how much I've been able to change in the past few months here. And in fact, that was one of the reasons I wanted to come here in the first place.




Me and Keita in Yokohama in front of a tower that changed colors. Please ignore the stupid-looking earmuffs. Even the shame of Mickey Mouse stuck firmly to either side of my head was nothing compared to how freezing it was that day (Seriously, that might be hard to imagine, but think walking around for hours outside with the wind blowing while not wearing a proper winter coat cause you just don't have one!!)



Second, language.



While I've told my friends that I feel like I haven't really gotten better, when I really look back at how I spoke in the beginning, I think I'm doing a lot better. I mean, my vocabulary still sucks, but I'm really beginning to be able to articulate more and more of what I want to be able to say in Japanese. I guess things like languages sneak up on you, and you don't realize how much you've learned until you look back.



Keita excitedly looking through the his new Star Wars comic that my parents sent him for Christmas. And...


Keita expressing his dismay at all the sparkles that had firmly stuck to his hands (from all the Christmas decorations that my parents sent in the same package to me). Do not let that smile fool you. His face shows dismay in it's rawest form. (Also, I'm pretty sure the next people who will live here next are still going to be finding sparkles everywhere when I leave....)


 The only problem is that my English is kinda going downhill. Several times when I've been writing here I've wanted to express something, but I could only figure out how to say it in Japanese (I want to say 不安, dernnit! There's no way to say 不安 properly in English! And めどくさい! Why is there no word in English for めんどくさい??).



I MADE A CHRISTMAS COOKIE YAY!



I wrote him a Christmas letter and then folded it into a heart. Because I am clever like that. Then I accosted him by taking a picture of it right next to his face...heeheehee.


Okay, that's all for now, I think. This might be a bit of a lackluster update after all this time but... oh well. Something's better than nothing, right?

--Caitlin

 P.S. Happy New Years!