on returning from home, Part I

Argh, caught a cold this week. Preparing for Kollin-San to come next week. We're going skiing! I've never gone before and I'm planning on breaking my leg before I go to get a head start on the whole event since we're only going for a day.

The weather here is turning nice and I promise to put up some pictures of the snow a few weeks ago one of these days. Really, I do. I've run into a little rut the past week trying to get myself studying for this damn test. Moved onto Macro-economics and it must be the lighting in the apartment mixed with the particular shade of pistachio green and pepto-bismol pink that soothes my eyes in a way that I keep dropping off every half a page.

Some people have inquired as to how I felt coming back to Japan after the trip home and I felt I should address that, eventually. I have to admit that it was a feeling that I didn't quite expect. I had a great time while I was home. It was so refreshing to be around good friends again and to be entirely free to say what I want in whatever way I want. It was amazing to be able to say whatever was on my mind and to know that if anyone ever disagreed with me, I would hear about it, immediately. I also need to say that I appreciate how supportive and encouraging some of you were. I went home rather unsure about what it would be like and uncertain about what path I might take on in the future. Steven, Peter and Michelle, I have to give a big thank you, largely for your faith in me, it really means a lot to me. Having said I feel a bit more certain that graduate school is very likely in my future. I am looking into it and plan on taking the GRE some time soon after April. No decisions will be made until Keiko and I agree together on the best path but I think it will happen eventually.

About coming back, well to put it straight, coming back to Japan really felt like I was coming home, in some ways more than going back to Texas. I know I've been here less than a year and I realized that it's largely related to having Keiko here but I don't think I would have felt like this if I had come home during my time in Korea. I still miss aspects of Austin. I miss the people, the culture, the music, the BBQ, my friends and of course the weather, but I feel like I have finally severed myself from that city. I think I filtered out the remaining nostalgia for the city and the memories I left with this time will be more concrete and tangible than some of the mush that was previously clogging my mind. It's good to see people doing things with their lives back there, but at the same time it was also a little disheartening to see how little things had changed for some. After the first couple days, there were a few situations that made me feel like I had never left and in reality that is the impression I got from some of the others too, my two years were in reality just a couple weeks.

So on the shuttle bus from Narita airport back to my part of this monstrously-sized city, the pulsating signs, sparkling taxis driving on the left and itsy-bitsy box of an apartment I call home, really felt just like that. I feel renewed coming back. My language ability is still a tad above nil but I'm attacking it with a renewed energy and I'm feeling less intimidated to try it out.

But, in the mean time let me just post this damn thing up along with some new pictures. It snowed here a few days after I returned, really unexpected yet beautiful. The trees were full of grace. Alas, it is gone now.