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So. Yeah. This thing has kind of been collecting dust. You can blame that loveliness on this thing called Gaia, which a certain two of my friends whose names shall go unmentioned got me FUCKING OBSESSED WITH because of the infinite boredom that is nighttime without a PS2. There's a journal for me there, and it gives me currency when I post in it, so. There are so many things I could write about, and I don't feel like writing about any of them. Suffice it to say that while I like Japan, I don't feel even remotely that I'm getting out of the experience what I set out to get out of the experience. It's entirely my own fault, and there's nobody to blame but myself, although there are certainly people who contribute heavily to my dislike of being here. Yeah, I kind of want to go home. I'm stuck here for another semester, though. It really blows, having been looking forward to this for six straight years, to finally come here and have all my illusions of it shattered. For some reason, I thought leaving America would make me a better person. Becoming accustomed to another culture, stepping outside my bubble, yadda yadda. But sometimes I actually feel like I'm worse off for coming here. I've always prided myself on being the type of person who will drag their ass to school with a fever, as long as I can still walk. I don't skip classes, I don't neglect my schoolwork (it all gets done by the deadline, no matter how much I procrastinate). But so far this semester, I've slept through two entire days' worth of classes, skipped classes on Halloween over a measly little cold, and handed in a paper two weeks past it's original due date It doesn't help to listen to my roommate. She invites me to go all over the place with her, but in all honesty she and her friends are not the type of people I enjoy hanging out with. They go to Kyoto all the time, and while yes, Kyoto is great and it's full of rekishiteki na mono (that's "historically significant stuff, for you non-Japanese speakers; aka everyone but me and Melissa, pretty much)... I am much more interested in Osaka. I came here because it was Osaka. Not that I go out and see much of Osaka. When I do feel like going out, nobody wants to go with me, so I end up staying in the dorm and being a loser. When I don't feel like going out... I don't go out either. It came to a head today in my Reading/Writing class, where everyone had to list off important/interesting places they've visited, and only one of the 10 or so that got mentioned, I've been to. I say all this, and I've been saying this for two months, now, but do I do anything about it? No. Do I ever do anything about anything? Not really. I'm also just really really sick of the food here. I have no meat in my diet. I miss 2% milk. I want Thanksgiving dinner. My mom is attempting to send it to me in a FedEx box. I'm going to miss Christmas, which makes me cry I don't know. I should be going out and doing things and stop being a whiny little shit about it. I'm in fucking JAPAN. But aside from seeing Japanese people on the street every day, I don't really feel like I'm in Japan. Which is a good indication that I'm not at all immersed in the culture. Which is an epic failure on my part, since that was the whole fucking point in coming here. God, how I hate doing things alone, though. The one friend I have here has lived in Japan before and so this is all old hat to her. She doesn't really care about going anywhere because she's seen all she wants to see. But in the meantime, I keep not going anywhere BECAUSE she's not going anywhere (not her fault; my fault for lacking independence). I don't know. Haven't gone to any festivals. Have gone to all of one temple since I got here. Mostly go to malls and restaurants. Honest to god, that's it. The only upside I can see to staying an extra semester is that it gives me a second chance to quit being a fuck-up. God willing, living with Eliza will be better than living in my current situation, and I can not feel the need to hide here because I'm too pissed at the human race to do otherwise. Because really, it's the people here that make me want to hide in my room. That and contacting people back home. But it's like... there are so many arrogant people here. People who think that their home country is The Shit, and that Japan is some kind of backwards, or their whole purpose in coming here was to drink and hit on Japanese people... it's like, you're fucking pigs. You all know I have almost no pride at all in being American. To me it's always been a case of, "Whatever, I was born here, big whoop." But I swear to god, if I hear one more person make some comment out of their ass about how there are too many Americans here, or how Americans are all the same, or whatever generalization they want to make about "Americans", I'm going to go batshit crazy and start whaling on them with a desk. We all know how much Liz looooooves being lumped in with a group. What I REALLY need to do, and this is a big need, is to make some JAPANESE friends. Again, something I've been saying for two months and not doing. I've become too attached to/comfortable with Virginia. I love her to death, but I do this too much. I find ONE PERSON, and then whatever they say, goes. And I just let myself follow their lead. And in this particular case, her lead is not letting me accomplish what I want to accomplish. I need to start doing things without her. But then I always feel bad when I do. Because when I'm out, she's holed up in her room. And then I come back to a message that says, "IM me when you get back" and find that she hasn't eaten dinner because I wasn't around. Which is what I do back at UMass when Megan or Melissa aren't around. I don't know. I don't regret being friends with her by a long shot. No no no no no no no. But I do feel like I shouldn't have stopped with her. I should have kept making other friends. Because she's leaving next semester and I'm going to have to start from scratch. Which, maybe, is a good thing, in terms of accomplishing my goals in Japan. I don't know. I never know. After this long an absence from this thing, you knew it was going to be an entry like this. I don't hate Japan. I don't hate being in Japan. I DON'T. It's so hard to explain how I feel about this. It's very complex. I want to go to Cocos and have a $22 steak. T____T I'll try to keep up with this thing more. If anyone got this far in the entry, eat a cookie, and note me, please-and-thank-you. :P
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