homesick

So this is what it's like.

To feel truly homesick- because your support system now only exists over the internet.

Don't get me wrong; I still have amazingly kind Japanese people here that are looking out for me.
I guess its just being with people that speak your own language,
and that truly understand how you feel because they've been in that situation before that makes it...different.
It also feels like the people that have left you are moving on.
They're doing better, greater things with their life.
Moving on.
And what am I doing?
Blogging. That's what I'm doing.
Brilliant, April. Just bloody brilliant.

It's a horrible feeling.
Being...left behind, I guess?
Being forgotten.
The feeling that the people you love have already begun to love something else,
and you are stuck in this horrible situation of unrequited sick Shakespeare 'love'.
It's hard to get out of, I think.
Hard, but not impossible.
Yet again, we all should beg our good friend, commonly referred to as time, to be kind to us.

The kind of support I'm receiving now from the Japanese people is different.
Not bad, not good, just...different.
It's the kind of support system that is done via the giving of food, really.
I usually do it myself by stuffing my face with chocolate but the Japanese people are kind enough to do it for you instead.
I'm truly grateful for it- too bad my waistline isn't.

Despite the comments that I have gained weight during this summer,
I was still fed lots, and lots of food.
I think the logic is this:
I'm the size of a killer whale now, why not be a blue whale instead?
Be extraordinary.
Screw killer whales; be a hugiant massive blue whale instead.
After all, if you are already this fat, why not be obese?
Do great things with your life!
Never stop halfway! God forbid.

I'm trying not to think about it.
The fact that I'm alone.
This feeling of utter rejection and crappiness.
(great adjective there, well done April. You've gotten smarter too, over the summer.)

I have been trying to distract myself, and once again; failing accordingly.
I've been doing things like spending 10,000yen plus on Japanese books (250NZD, 100USD) which will probably take me a year to get through.
During that short hour and a half of browsing in the shop with my Japanese friend?
I forgot.
I forgot about the current situation I am in.
But then I remembered; and the books I bought that are currently sitting in my bookshelf collecting dust are just books to me, as opposed to being the key tools towards my understanding of the Japanese language.

I miss all the things that are familiar to me.
Friends, family, free time to do whatever you want and whenever you want.

Even now, after five months of being here,  I still struggle with some aspects of this culture.
I struggle with the fact that I have to go to school tomorrow for two (or a billion) hours to make imaginary candles for a gay 'cultural festival'.
By the way.
What is UP with Japanese school kids and taking forever to get something done for festivals?
I swear you would think that you would wanna get OUT of school as soon as possible.
Tsk. (sorry, rant done.)

Anyway.
I also struggle with the fact that the other 3 girls I am doing this bonding-candle-making-session with are all socially quite awkward too.
Making conversation with them is like talking to a wall.
Except, the wall smiles at you more, so maybe I should just stick to my daily wall conversations.

Isn't it horrible, that out of the 42 girls in my class, only one I manage to be really great friends with?
I'm friends with a few others but I'm the closest to this one.
She looks a great deal like my cousin back in Malaysia.
Maybe they're somehow related.
I bet they are.
:)

But I guess it can't be helped that I'm not friends with absolutely every single girl in my class.
For one- I'm apparently in the really bitchy class,
and the girl I managed to become friends with also shares the same opinion about the girls in my class too.
Fate has been so ever kind to me once again, and I got the bitchy and spoilt girls as classmates for the remaining 5 months I have left here in Japan.
It's funny- 5 months sounds so short now that I look back,
but the days crawl by when you are not enjoying your time here in Japan.
So far these past few days have felt like weeks to me,
and I would look at the clock and instead of going "my god, its already 3?", I'd say, "my god, its ONLY 3?!"

Happiness is a choice.
Apparently I said that to a good friend a while back.
Apparently its true,
and hey, I bet it is, but for some reason wallowing in self pity is so much easier for now. =]
Maybe when school actually starts, and I throw myself into kanji and grammar learning, I'd be fine again.

I wouldn't have thoughts that I'd go back to New Zealand and still feel this alone.
I wouldn't have to keep all the feelings I have in me to myself,
and I can actually talk to someone about them,
instead of pouring them out on here, where I'd read back and think "...you're an idiot".
But experience is experience, and what I feel is entirely genuine- so no harm in blogging it down on the very public internet, yeah? =]

So it's two more days till actual school starts.
Two.
Tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.
Two more days left of my amazing summer that is ending not so amazingly.
Although time is crawling by right now- I pray that it will go faster and faster.
Faster because I'll be happier.
Faster because I'll have so much fun that I'm chasing time in comparison to the waiting I'm doing with it right now.
Faster because I think I'm quite done with being here in Japan.

I miss home, and I miss you.

All my love always,

April