GOOD MORNING ALL~
Well, kind of, it's beastly beautiful outside, but also freakin' hot as anything so I'm hiding out on the first floor of the Matsumoto house. Speaking of which, attached to the end of this lovely blog entry will be the entry I wrote right after I told my host mom I wanted to move out and talked it over with my mom. Because that's already all covered... I'll start in with the photo.
It's not bakuhatsu nemuri or anything, but yeah, I was coming home tipsy from a night of fun with friends and strangers and there was this guy. He was just OUT. He also took up more than half the bench. I just couldn't help but smile. Everybody else on the seats around him made sure to clear plenty of space from him.
SOOOOO....
Moving on now. *laughs*
Yesterday was awesomely fun. I spent the majority of the day figuring out my housing options and have an apartment all lined up now. I'll be going into the office to pay for it on Tuesday or so, the move-out will take place Wednesday. I still have yet to go through the official last talks with the family, but it's supposed to happen some time tonight. Host mom is running out the door right now, even as I type this, so yeah... XDDD
After the apartment application was filled out, my ID cards scanned, and my life all squared away, I met up with D-Bang and met some new people, Su-an and Yukari, and saw some of her other friends I'd been introduced to before, Sergio and Wa-wa. We chilled in the shade for a bit because yesterday was beastly hot, but eventually we got moving to HARAJUKU! We did some shopping in Harajuku and I had my lunch/pre-dinner meal of a strawberry/chocolate ice cream/ cheese cake/pastry/whip cream CREPE. Oh yes... do be envious. *grins* I scored this awesome deal with a wonderfully blue hoodie for 1050yen! It was just plain ole hot so I ended up changing out of my red baseball tee into my white tank top with the hoodie over it.
We met up with Jeanette a bit laters and we all did some more window shopping. Pretty soon it was time for dinner at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in Harajuku!!! AMERICAN FOOD!!! ON THE 4th of JULY!!! WHEEEEEE~ Motoi-kun from G-Splash who is was in Harupa's First Year Hip Hop group with me, Jen, Jeannette, and Steph came out too! Unfortunately, both Diana's and Jeannette's cellphones died at the same time, so I ended up texting everybody I had the address of in G-Splash for Motoi's info. It was a very interesting experience.... especially because I asked TONBO-SAN! He was really great about it and we tried to get him to come out with us to do fireworks, but it was a bust. Oh well... we'll just have to wait until camp!
Dan also came out to eat with us, and it's been like months since I've really seen and talked with him. We met up with a bunch of people, but because introductions weren't really done, I didn't know any of them. Well, I started off my meal with a 680 yen SAMUEL ADAMS *cheeeeeeeeeeses*. Bad luck for me, but I don't think it was brewed in the States. Still, I got the Puck Burger and it was delicious and meaty! I only ate half of it, but I got a good chunk of Jen's yummilicious BBQ Chicken wrap[?]. The other half of my burger went to Jen and Motoi. I'm really starting to doubt my "grub on" skills. Especially since Motoi took one look at my plate and was like, "Dude, that's huge, isn't it?" Me: "Yeah... it kind of is..." ^_____^ That's why he got a quarter of my burger. I used to be able to kill the 2 patty Five Guys Burger with no problem. The 4 patty heart attack burger from Wendy's? ATES IT! All you can eat hot pot at home? I ate for HOURS. Now? Not so much.
After we ate and talked for a gooooood looooong while, we were going to head to Shibuya's Don Quixote to buy fireworks, but the majority of us just wanted to drink and chill in Yoyogi Park, so that's what we did. We were there from like 9:30ish until 11:30ish or so, about 2 hours. With two cans of "strong" chuhai, I was able to get a decent buzz and be quite chirpy. I talked to Motoi about lots of stuff, but mainly about the sex culture in Japan and the differences between dating here and dating in America. Jeannette and Diana had schooled him on the culture of evangelizing Christians in America, the problems of Yellow Fever, and other such topics earlier in the restaurant. Me talking with him about why Japanese men stare at my chest when I wear tanks and such was like a joke. XD He's actually quite chill and I really liked hanging out with him.
Let's see, the day before yesterday, the 3rd is the blog that will be added on at the end of this entry. The day before that was WEDNESDAY and Tokyo Disney Sea DAY!!!!
I had a bomb blast time. That's about all I can really say about it. It's expensive as hell to get there and I didn't know about the student discount that would've saved me 1300 yen. But, I did get my awesome Stitch hat and my amazing Mickey visor. I also met some of Diana's amazingly super nice friends like Jackie, Rakellie, Rachel and Emily. Steph went too and I met her friend from VIRGINIA, Nicole. We ended up getting there around 1:30ish or so I think, but we stayed until they kicked us out. XDDD It was a great, long day. Please expect pictures when I can finally get a stable internet connection, which should be like Wednesday.
Okay... here's the entry you'e been waiting for:
7.3.08
Okay, so while these feelings are still fresh and vibrant within me, I need to drop them onto something. I’ve done it. I’ve finally told my host mother I wanted to move out, and I did it with a sad smile. But still, at least I smiled. I wasn’t trying to be mocking or anything, I just needed to smile to keep myself from screaming. Sometimes, at moments like this, when I’m somewhat settling down to the reality of moving out, I realize how selfish my request is.
Leaving after 3 months just because you can’t take it anymore? There’s only 1 month left! Hell, not even! There’s like 28 days left! What a waste! You can’t even get that final month’s worth of money back either! Geez… what are you thinking? How selfish can you be?
And to that, I can’t really say anything because it is reasonably selfish of me to want to leave, to waste my parents’ money like this, to not stick it out for the next 28 days. However, this experience was supposed to be for me to learn the language, the culture, the peoples… and I haven’t done any of that.
After I told Okaa-san that I wanted to move out, she gave me a sigh. I’ve essentially conditioned her to brace for whenever I want to speak to her one on one, because each time I’ve done it was to put my complaints out there. Maybe I’m nothing but complaints, but she knew. I let her speak after I said my peace because… I said my peace. Anything I try to say would just hurt her in the long run and I didn’t want that, so she went on a long spiel about how inconsiderate Americans are [as a people and traditionally speaking], how the family has also been holding back its comments on my behavior, and how my doing laundry really did peeve the absolute hell out of them.
She went on for a while about how because I was still young and ignorant, inexperienced in the ways of society, so I couldn’t be faulted for my shortcomings. She said that she wanted me to stay but could understand if I felt the need to go. She also put it out there that they’ll never host another student again [which I think is for the best].
I nodded and smiled the entire time, encouraging her to let her feelings out. She has a tendency of holding back that barb on me and she lashes out at me at the weirdest/most painful times, so I was just rather wishing for a frontal attack rather than a sneak. She said that she tried her best to see the good in me, because that’s what she does, she tries to see the good in people. I told her the same thing essentially. I’m leaving this house now before these feelings of pain and regret suffocate all memories of staying here. I want to walk away with only the good things that happened like all the delicious meals Okaa-san made, Otou-san’s weirdly random behavior, and Meimi just being Meimi. She told me that’d be impossible to do.
After she said that if I left it’d be a lose/lose for both of us, I told her it was a lose/win because I might be leaving, but I got to meet her, and she, being an essentially good person, is worth meeting. She corrected me, told me I was wrong, and said that I was essentially running away from my problems and not dealing with a situation just because I found it “iya [bad/no good/uncomfortable].” It was “iya” 2 months ago when I went to the Overseas Liaison Center and wanted to leave. Now it’s “kurushii [suffocating/difficult/painful].” I didn’t say that though, again, why hurt somebody who’s already hurting?
It’s over.
I’m out.
I called my mom right afterwards and in the midst of telling her about how much I’d need for an apartment, I broke down crying. Between regret for leaving and joy for finally going through with it, I was just torn. Apparently, she was just surprised I held in there for so long. I have a tendency of sticking through painful situations and trying to deal with them alone. I usually succeed, but the results are scarring. My mom had been curious why I’d stuck with it despite being more than ready to leave 2 months ago. I think it was my naiveté. I’m still young enough and not jaded enough to think that things gone super sour can still pick up. I want to believe in that light in the dark tunnel. I want to find that damn pot of gold at the other end of the rainbow. My cup? It looks pretty half-full to me. I tried. It just wasn’t meant to work out.
Oh well. Tomorrow is JULY 4th!!!! INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!
Apt isn’t it? On the day my friends and I will celebrate America’s independence, I’ll celebrate mine as well!
I need to sleep now because it’s late and I had only 5 hours of sleep the night before.
- T
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Voila. That's it. I'm sort of all blogged out now. Look for pictures soon. I'll be sure to update.
Love,
T
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