Entries this day: State_of_My_Life_Address

State of My Life Address

3:57am CST Saturday 22 March 2003

1. I'm going to leave for Japan in less than a week.

2. I've got all the paperwork I need: tickets, passport with visa, Certificate of Eligibility. (I hope that's it cause that's what I've got.)

3. I've not yet purchased all the clothing I think I'll need, much less packed yet.

4. I've given Scott to Janette, effectively to Josephine. We figured that would be easier since Josephine doesn't have a TDL yet.

5. I've pretty much said Bye to everyone. Plan to see my mom in Waco on Monday or Tuesday cause she wasn't in Austin yesterday or today.

In a way that feels blessed and lucky and wealthy, I have somehow accumulated $3600 to take with me to Japan. One of the ways I've accumulated this is by working. Another way is by borrowing money from friends. Another way is by not buying anything for the past couple months except with credit card.

I'm relatively certain I'll be quite able to pay everything back quickly, like I paid back my student loans back in the day. Back then it was $14,000 dollars I think, plus the remains of $4,000 medical bills from bonking my head. This time it's like $6000 total (actually less), so I'll be able to knock that out quickly.

Living in Dallas with Janette has been an absolute blast. We play and goof around all the time, going for walks and random adventures to random places (lake, woods, railroad tracks, houses being built, Austin, Houston, back alley, snow, rain, sunshine, cloud watching...) it's been sooo great. I'm really going to miss her while in Big J. Or should I call it little J? or Crowded J? Or just Japan....

Anyway, I have lots of questions and few answers about what life will be like overseas. I just gotta (resume and) keep practicing Japanese, focusing on my quest to become fluent in 3 more languages by 2010.

Oh, I've decided I'm not coming back to US for the year that I'm in Japan. Any vacation I get I'll use to explore more areas, not come back for a short week to rush around hugging all my friends. After my contract, maybe I'll take two months off and hug everyone back here. It just seems so silly to come back for a brief emotional frenzy in the middle, so I won't do it. I can predict heart-wrenching when I hear/read about rallies and especially SWUUSI, but I've got to continue boldly forth.