Updates.

January 20

Day 15

Midterms. It’s January and I’m halfway done with my semester. Unreal.

We’re 4 days away from Japan and everyone's stoked. A week and a half of our daily routines consisting of sunrises, sunsets, tanning by the pool, swimming, reading, and the only daily task of working out (and the occasional homework) will make you antsy. Not that I can really complain. We had a “study day” yesterday that looked like spring break in Cabo without the alcohol, which is actually a huge drawback because now everyone is going to be doubling their sake intake in Tokyo. (Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll make smart choices!)

I’ve been waking up every morning at 6:30 to watch the sunrise from before it breaks the darkness to when it’s fully in the sky. If you know me well enough, you should be impressed (*ignoring the hour we gain every other day*). Living at the bottom of the hill in Windmill made me appreciate the sunrises and sunsets. But I have to admit I’m becoming quite the snob. This morning I skipped the end of the sunrise, unimpressed by its lack of color. Before feeling guilty, I remembered that I’ll have plenty more where that came from. How bad is that…

One thing I never thought would be that weird, but has proven to actually be very weird, is seeing teachers outside of the classroom. At home, when I see teachers or professors in public I'll go through a brief moment of shock in realization that they are anywhere but a classroom, before putting two and two together to deduct that they are, in fact, co-members of the human species. But seeing them eating, socializing, and god forbid working out, is a little confusing. Yesterday I saw one professor in very short bright red shorts, a tucked in Hanes t-shirt, high socks and a headband around the middle of his forehead. I could swear he came straight out of a nineties workout video. Or you have a situation like my friend was in this morning, where she was discussing something of the feminine matter before realizing her professor was directly behind her and could hear the entire conversation…awkward.

Nonetheless, this tight little community is pretty nice. There are still plenty of people I have yet to meet, but all are so welcoming and easy to start conversations with. I’m learning that I actually live a quite boring life compared to the majority, who have lived in other countries, are trilingual, multiracial, spent all of high school in exchange programs, and study astrophysics, biomedical engineering or want to be doctors in Africa of Southeast Asia. And here I am, a little white girl from Westchester, New York, studying communications at a predominantly white university with aspirations in corporate event planning. Oh dear. Another goal of mine on this trip is to find something about myself that sets me apart from the hundreds of thousands of other basic ‘me’s in the tristate area. Wish me luck!

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about” -Charles Kingsley