Whew! With roughly 90 minutes to go before leaving the house, and approximately 4.5 hours before leaving the country, I'm done packing! Yes, it was probably a bad idea not to start packing before 1:00AM when I have to leave at 3:30AM, but truth be told, the actual packing process didn't take too long. I'd already gathered most of the stuff in my room, so it was really just a matter of checking them off my checklist and putting them in my bags - which were surprisingly roomy (aka not bursting at the seams) when I was done, and according to my parent's scale, below weight limits! This is a good sign for future gifts/souvenirs.
Anyway, I can't believe I'm finally going to Japan! I keep feeling like I'm forgetting something important, even though I've gone through my checklist multiple times, mentally and physically. Maybe it's the fact that I really haven't studied Japanese as much as I should, considering I have placement tests on my first day of orientation, but I'm planning to study some on the plane (assuming I'm not zonked out the whole time) and I still have a week of possible study time before I even get to Nagoya. [Side note: I'm currently feeling very very silly because I spent a large portion of the last week taking notes from my textbooks on index cards so I could bring those instead of the books if I needed a reference, but after Jon offered to email me his PDF versions of the books, I realized that I could have just downloaded those in the first place to bring on my laptop instead of spending hours writing things down. -.-' This is particularly silly because that's exactly what I already did with the kanji books; I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me I could do the same with these. At least it was good review!]
So anyway, I guess it's just nerves. This term will be the longest I've ever been out of the country, and the first time so far away from the support of all my friends/family. But I won't be completely alone - there's Megumi (!) when I first get to Japan, Stephen with me at Nanzan, and all the other Carls studying in Japan this term, who'll at least be in the same country and give me a reason to do some traveling and visit! I'm really curious to see how Japan matches up with my perceptions of it; I've been building a mental image in my head for years now, and I guess I'll find out how much of that is real. I'm also looking forward to meeting my host family and riding the shinkansen, not to mention eating authentic Japanese ramen and raiding 100-yen shops! There's so much I want to see and do; four months hardly seems long enough.
I feel like I'm starting to sound cliché and over-optimistic; I blame the lack of sleep and the fact that I'm not used to expecting people to actually read what I write. So I think I'll wrap it up for now (my dad will probably be getting up to take me to the airport pretty soon anyway) with a little list (I'm a big fan of lists).
Things to look forward to in the next 24 hours:
- Airports and plane rides! Some of my favorite parts of traveling.
- A layover in Toronto - I've never been to this airport, and Canada is a nice place - they have parades on my birthday! :)
- Landing in Japan! The actual landing part probably won't be too exciting (especially with customs to go through), but it's still something I've wanted to do for years, and I'll probably freak out a little.
- Seeing Megumi for the first time in 2+ years! I'm so ridiculously excited, I can't even say. It's going to be a great week. :D
Have a safe trip!!
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