JETSETTING

I finished up at my sweet office job yesterday. I lied when I said I was going to talk about offys polityx; there aren't any. Everyone was genuinely sweet, funny, generous with the biscuits and pleasantly left-leaning, politically. It was a good six weeks.

IN OTHER NEWS: I'm pissing off to Japan in a fortnight, and I'll be there for about a year. Take THAT, mostly-wasted language major! I'll get my money's worth outta you yet... But anyway! In honour of the occasion, I've started a "travel blog" or whatever, called Watakushi Wa. There is a single post up there but since I'm not actually travelling yet it might be a while before it gets off the ground and I have no moral qualms about cross-posting to both of my word-vomit recepticles so BE WARNED.

(May I take this moment to point out that yes, Wordpress is infinitely better & easier to use than Blogger. Sorry. It's true. Not giving up this URL though.)

This leaving thing is starting to get Real, man. Two weeks is a very graspable amount of time, and yet the fact that I am actually leaving the town I've lived in for three years and the country I've lived in for (a cumulative) ten still hasn't really sunk in. There is a distant sense of terror that clutches at me sometimes--a sense that yes, this is happening, you are flinging yourself into the great unknown, all alone, you foolish, foolish creature. Have I mentioned that all the Japanese I've learned over the last two and a bit years has completely leaked out of my head? It took me about ten minutes to piece together a sentence that MIGHT have approached "I am interested in Japanese culture, so I am going to Japan next month." Maybe.

So the thought of travelling alone with minimal language skills is a little daunting. And I will be travelling alone for a bit, rather than jumping straight into uni life: I'm going to Furano, in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, in order to escape the stifling August heat in Tokyo and also to roll around in their famous flowers, preferably with a local gentleman. Which is of course, very exciting and I am very much looking forward to it, but oh holy jesus, I've never done anything like this before, and what if I fail completely? What if my parents receive a tear-filled phone call 48 hours after arrival and have to deal with me being very sure that I hate Japan, everyone is awful and I need to come home immediately?

Not only will it be a waste of time and money, it will be EMBARRASSING. I have hyped this trip up so much, to myself and to anyone who will allow their ear to be talked off, that if it fails I will probably have to ritual suicide (which seems appropriate).

Jesus Christ. I'm going on this amazing overseas adventure, I have a scholarship to make things easy, a place to stay, people I know, and a bright future, and STILL I find things to whinge about. First world problems: I have them.