Hiya.

“Amanda, what the hell? I mean, you’re alive?!”

Yeah, yeah. What’s the point of a site about being in Japan, when I’m not actually there? You tell me. I’m still trying to figure it out, is what’s what. I still think about the place all the time though (as my duty as a weeboo states), but to tell the truth, it’s kind of annoying to post all the time about a place I just want to get back to. Too much nostalgia, too boring of a life here, and too much busy work for Korean class all comes together to prevent me from updating for six months.

But yeah, I’ve been chillin, in the states, down here in Armpit, New Jersey, finishing up my Japanese degree and still waiting on JET - well, that’s a given, after all. The job’s so good you have to wait a year to find out whether you’re accepted! they say.  Not that I’m denying it; it’s just. Well. I’ve got like two weeks to go and I’m not even excited any more. I’ve planned so much for what will happen if I don’t get in that I don’t know what’ll happen if I do. A lot of shit’ll go down, that’s for sure! I’m coming to your town, to Tokyo, for one year (or more) so yall better be on your best behavior. In all serious, I really hope I get in, but I’ve got backups, just in case. You know I gotta.

I was thinking, in one of my more depressed states, that if I don’t get a job with JET, then I’ll just spend a couple months on a tourist visa like Tim Rogers did, searching desparately for a job that actually wants to take a honkie like myself. I’m not sure if that’s really a, uh, smart thing to do though, seeing as I’m neither a genius or a novelist, but I’m getting desperate here. It’s not so much that I’m depressed, it’s just that I’m going crazy here. I got so busy preparing for the NEXT year of my life that I forgot about living one in the here and now. I think that was what was so great about Japan - I didn’t have to worry about anything but the present. Now it’s just Future Future Future (or rather, glum global outlook, no job for you!). I don’t know though, I sure beefed up my resume though:

I helped create a Japanese conversation club at school, and I’m the vice-prez

Finished up my obligation to Freeman-Asia by having a panel with kids interested in study abroad

Went to TWO Japanese-english job fairs

Got an interview for JET

Passed the JLPT level ONE in December 2008 (!!!)

That looks good, yeah? The only problem is that I kind of have zero social life, right now. But I have dreams, baby, do I ever! I’m still improving (if only by a tiny bit, which is better than deteriorating, now innit), and I’m still working towards my vague goal of “having a life in Japan,” but right now, I have some free time. Well, I mean, I gotta finish up my degree, right? But other than that…

I wanna do some stuff for the site : as you can see, I’ve finally instated the “COMMENT SYSTEM.” It’s a little off (what’s with the “post comment” button being like, white, or something?), but maybe SOMEDAY I’ll mess some more with it. You guys are lucky that I just had to insert some random lines and that I got it right the first time. I am DONE with CSS, can someone just do it for me from now on? Also, I wanna get the ball rolling on posting a lot : sure there’s not much I can post RIGHT NOW, but I can at least talk about Japanese - seeing as I have a little bit of expertise in the area now. And honestly, when I get back there I want to post a shit-ton of updates - so I gotta practice now. None of this “once-a-month” crapola I was pulling way back when. Also, yeah, I’ve been mulling around a video blog for quite a while now; still not sure at all when that’s going to be done.

I still have some things I want to say about Japan, too. Maybe I can work on that. I just wish I was better at this whole writing business: I’ve worked so hard at Japanese for such a long time that any creative bone in my body has broken far too long ago. 

Well. Let’s try though. Let this be the SECOND BIRTH of this website. Let this be the REBIRTH OF AMANDA IN JAPAN, rising from the ashes. I have things to say, and I’m going to say them this time, and I’m going to say them with some grace, and some style. Because I want to be graceful, and stylish, and maybe someday an author of some sort.

And uh, a 外人タレント, of course.

 I walk around all the time with such a bored look on my face.

I walk to school with my fancy electric blue ipod, with cool multi-colored shoes and a pretty scarf, and my expression just about ruins it all. “I’m too punk-rock for this,” I’m saying, when I don’t even listen to punk-rock.

“Put a smile on!” somebody said, once. And I did, until they left.

I’m not unhappy, I’m not wanting for food, or shelter. I’m just bored.

And then I think, well, I can’t fall into that trap. I can’t be that girl, that poor little white girl. It’s just been done before. And besides, I was interesting, once! I had a lot of friends, once! Whatever happened back then, when I vowed that I’d make everywhere I live interesting, where I’d find fun now, in all that I do?

It just seems like I have too little free time, and too much, all at the same time.I say too little because everytime I have a creative thought, or some crazy idea, I want to act on it until I realize that I have work in five minutes, or I have class in an hour. I say too much, because most of time I don’t have any creative thoughts; I’m just bored whenever I get a moment of free time. I always feel like there’s something I could be doing - that vague something is always “study japanese” or “write a mixi” or “look for a job hurr” and never, “go out with your goddam friends.”

I have a few extremely close friends, and I have my roommate, and uh, that’s it. Well, I have Japanese club, and I consider all those people friends - but I hang out with them outside of “work” once every, what, three months or so. “Amanda, we didn’t even think you wanted to hang out with us!” said Jocelyn after I bubbled how happy I was sitting with her and Steve at the bar. “I always want to hang out with you guys,” I replied seriously. “I just spent the last four months cramming for a goddam Japanese test, is all.”

And now Steve (who Shizuka loved) is going out with Jocelyn (who was Shizuka’s best friend). We’re all moving on, and it’s driving me nuts. I’m stuck wanted to move on from this place where nothing changes and to stay put in that year of my life where everything changed (yet, being the past, by nature will never change either.)

All the drama, or whatever, is completely gone. And I actually don’t miss it, either (for real!). I live a normal life here, but all I want is a normal life in a country completely foreign to me. What gives? Why is it that everything being in another language makes it so wonderful? I don’t even have wanderlust (though I want to travel the heck out of Asia), I just want to be there instead of here.

And you know what, I just hate that me saying that hurts so me many people. I can’t help that I feel this way. Maybe it would be nice if I could find some adventure here, but I think it’s all run dry, in America.

So I’m bored with my life, and my classes, and my job, and my friends, and my roommates, and all it does is make me an asshole. I mean, whose fault is it really? There’s a common factor here, and it’s me.  I don’t want to be this way; I’ve just sort of set it up this way, I think. I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed, because I can do anything, and even though everything has worked out so far, if I fail at the biggest, if I fail at getting into JET…well it’s my fault that I put my entire self-worth into getting a job (in this economy, no less!). And it’s awful pretentious of me to demand that you all entertain me because I’m oh-so-wonderful, but I’m as full as the garbage bag in our scrody kitchen with pretenses these days. 

I’m trying to work on this, I think. I’ve spent the last couple months off-and-on daily blogging, trying to write about what’s been interesting in my life, lately. I’m bout to get over my weird fear of being on AIM and Skype because what I’m missing is talking to Misha at a weird hour about Crayon Shin-chan. And I realized that it’s not that things are inheritently interesting - I kinda have to make them , or think of them that way. Right? 

“It’s so quiet here,” Koki said, as we were walking Lucy down the well-worn roads of my development. It was the first time in six months that I’d seen any of my friends from Japan, and it was a glorious, jam-packed, so-exhausted-I-want-you-to-leave-now-Koki kind of weekend. I guess compared to Washington DC, where he was staying, or Philadelphia, where I picked him up and we had cheesesteaks, my development was pretty quiet, yeah.

“But this is pretty normal, for suburbs,” I said, in my weird mix of English and Japanese that I knew I could use because Koki was good enough at English and I stunk now at Japanese. “And most of America is like this, I think.” It didn’t matter though, I was happy enough at getting to show off the place I had lived for the entirety of my life that mattered. This is how it’s done, here, man. Just look how goddam big my house is.

“It’s just so … weird, right? It’s weird that I’m here, in your house,” he said later. 

“It’s weird,” I agreed.

“I can’t believe it.”

That unbelievablity is kind of what makes a study abroad, isn’t it? I can’t believe I’m here, I can’t believe I’m doing this. You take that weirdness and it becomes the driving feeling of your memory - and it’s so new and wonderful that it colors all of your thoughts and it sort of stops you from liking the place that was once so comfortable and familiar and now seems too familiar. I want to feel that newness again. I want to feel weird, and uncomfortable. I want to see what happens to me. That’s how you end up feeling. That’s what studying abroad was about, to me. And then that weirdness becomes natural, and it’s even more wonderful than you could have imagined.

Feeling “uncomfortable” made me more alive than I ever thought possible.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe you can generate that feeling somewhere so it doesn’t matter when “there” becomes “here” and you feel like you have to move again. Maybe you can just hold on to that, forever. I sure hope to God that it’s not something that goes away forever, like growing up and forgetting the scream-in-the-dark intensity that comes with being a teenager. It’s not something I ever wanted to forget, but time, like a waterfall, dulls everything in its wake. 

Seeing Koki’s quirky grin, sitting on my couch hugging my dog, his familiar scarred hand brushing her dandelion coat, I thought that yes, this is weird. But it’s a familiar weird, now.

In the casino, later, where I took Koki to my boyfriend’s birthday party and mistakenly thought no one would card him, I felt that weirdness as I sat with him and Lael, sipping sodas I bought with the money I won (off of Lael’s five dollars). Let’s talk about crazy: this turd of a guardwoman waddles up to us, when poor Koki’s not even on the carpet, and she demands his id. Oh, leave us alone, I rolled my eyes, and lied, “Sure, he’s 21, but his id is in Japanese so I uh, don’t think you can read it.” 

“Are you sure he’s 21?”

“Yeah. You wanna see my id?”

“No, no.” (what the heck? I’m pretty sure the Borgata is lame, and racist) “I’m going to need him to go over to the security booth; we got translators there.”

Koki looked at me and said in Japanese, “Oh shit, what’s happening?”

“Nothing, shh,” I said, mad that I had lied and thought I wouldn’t get caught. 

Jon butted in. “What, are you trying to kick him out?”

“No,” she flapped her jowl. “I just want him to get his hand stamped so he feels comfortable here.” (bullshit!) “I mean, if he’s not 21 he’s not even allowed to be in the hotel.” (double bullshit?!?)

“Does she want my passport?” Koki offered, in Japanese.

“God, no,” I said. “We’re just going to walk around and then run back to the shops and stuff.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“Hahah uh! Well, I uh, I kinda lied! About your age.”

He did his little Japanese, “eh!??” and I shushed him around the corner. “Atleast this’ll be a good memory, huh??” I grinned. Almost getting caught by the (casino) cops? Sounds like America to me!

It was 2 am when we got home, and we were setting out towards New York tomorrow. I murmured where the bathroom was, when he was in his pajamas in Zack, my step brother’s room. We couldn’t look at each other - him sleeping in a bed, in my house, thousands of miles from where I first met him, was just too weird for the both of us. I wanted to say something, like “thanks for coming, this has been fun already,” or see if I couldn’t finally talk about something deep with a Japanese person, but we both knew we were too tired to even think about that. And yeah, it’s common knowledge that deep conversation with a Japanese person happens only after the third year you know them, come on.

I think it says something about my Japanese ability when I say I still can’t talk about anything deep. Or maybe it just says something about me.

It was a little weird, weird like a rock band, being on a whirlwind tour of New York as a three boy, one girl, three gaijin, one japanese group of delinquents. When I say delinquents, what I really means was senior citizens because we spent half the day sleeping. It only makes me remember those days in Japan with Koki and the rest of the crew, where we’re stay up all night and try to go somewhere the next day, when we really just found another place to sleep, not a vacation.

Lael and Pat were good sports, talking with Koki, but we all know when someone is tired their language skill goes out the window. Still, we had a good conversation at the (overpriced) TGI Friday’s in Times Square:

Koki wide-eyed his 4000-calorie bacon cheeseburger. New York, like Japan, has to print the calorie amounts of every dish on the menu. It’s pretty awesome. It feels like home.

“超ボリューム！” (Geez, look at all this!)

“This is a real cheeseburger, ” said Lael, who had the same thing. He daintily picked the vegetables out and Koki noticed, laughing. 

“ね、アマンダ、アメリカ人って野菜嫌いよね” (Hey, Amanda, Americans really don’t like vegetables, do they?) he said like I wouldn’t translate it. 

“Hey, man, I like vegetables,” I said, pointing to the (one) cherry tomato on my plate.

Yeah, as my bloated body can attest, we Americans eat 超 volume. I don’t even remember what it’s like to fill up on a plate worth of food from the Zoshinkan at Rits, and I miss it like I miss every Japanese meal that I can’t get here. I asked him later if he tried any Japanese food here, and he said it just wouldn’t be the same (or authentic, I couldn’t tell) if he had it here. I guess the same is true for everywhere - the only real American burger I had was at McDonalds (haha).   

“Hey Amanda,” he mumbled sleepily to me on the train home later. “Look.” He had Superfly’s “Ai wo komete, hanataba wo” playing on his ipod. It was the first song I had ever sung at my first full Japanese karaoke night. It seemed so long ago; I smiled with half-drawn eyes. They all remembered my first song, like it was important. They all still ask about me. Half of the members don’t even go to ping pong club any more, Koki says. I wonder, selfishly, if it isn’t because they gaijin super stars of Amanda, Janet, and Maripe aren’t coming any more? 

Were we important to those people, or are we just kidding ourselves?  Do they think about me nearly as much as I think about them? I wonder if they know just how important those four months were to me. I told them, but I never knew if they understood, really, because I can never be deep or engaging when I need to be. But they’ll live their lives without me, and I’ll live mine without them, and hopefully we left enough of an impact on each other that the memory of a lone gaijin joining them on a sakura blossom April afternoon will never fade.  

I was speeding home, on the turnpike, because Koki needed to get to 30th Street Station by 7:30 and we left New Brunswick at 6:00. In other words, ぎりぎり。We were silent, because I was exhausted, and pissed because we were late, and really really didn’t want to go to school the next day. But we were also silent because we had nothing left to say. I could have asked, “Hey Koki, what do you want to do with your life?” “Hey Koki, tell me more about what goes on in your head there?” but he would have only replied, “I don’t know.” That’s how it’s always been, me and my Japanese friends, and I couldn’t be selfish and try to force a “deep” friendship out of 48 hours. My desire to have an American-style no holds barred relationship with my Japanese friends might never actually be fulfilled - they tell you that, on day one. Still, I hope.

“I don’t think I’m going to tell you what time it is,” he grinned sheepishly. “It might freak you out.”

I laughed, shrilly. “No, dude, we’re going to make it.” We had to make it - I couldn’t spend more minute being exhausted because then I’m pretty sure I would want him to leave. I sped up 42 like my life depended on it, and believe you me, when I say I’ve never gone fast up a freeway, I mean it. There’s a reason I love Japan, and it’s because I hate driving. 

I pulled up to the station at 7:20 and we leapt out of the car in joy. “We did it, we did it!” he cried. After all, the train was five minutes late. My car was parked crooked, the rearend jutting out into traffic. “Whatever!” I laughed. I felt like I accomplished something impossible, and once more felt like I could do anything. I tried not to think about the fact that he was already leaving as a pushed a quarter or three into the meter.

We got in line, all grins, for his train, and I leaned against the dusty marble pillar. “I can’t believe it.”

“What?”

“That we got here.”

“You did it,” he said. “But yeah, uh, you were kinda scary too.”

I laughed, “I’ve never driven like that!” Only for you, my friend.

The line started moving, and I desperately searched for something to say.”Have fun the rest of your week in DC,” I said, in English.

“Yeah.”

“This was fun. I hope it was fun.”

“うん、楽しかった.” Yeah, it was.  

I didn’t think I was going to cry. I couldn’t anyway. He wouldn’t have known what to do after all. “I’m going to miss you!” I said, holding my arms out.  ”ハグしよーよ！”

He hugged me (or rather, I held him for two seconds, awkwardly) for the third time in my life. The second time was when I met him at the station. The first was my last night to see him in Japan. That was the only time I could get a hug out of a Japanese person - a goodbye or a 久しぶり hello. It was enough, though.

“You take care of yourself,” he said, walking too fast on the tile. I walked backwards, out of the way.

“I will! You too! We’ll see each other soon!”

“Yeah! Next time it’ll be in Japan!” he grinned. 

My eyes grew hot, and I laughed. “Yeah, in Japan!” I kept laughing as he boarded the escalator. I kept waiting to see if he’d look back. He didn’t look back, but I waited too long, too. It wasn’t that kind of goodbye - a goodbye between an American and a Japanese never is. Those gaps in our culture only make what we have that much more special. I’ll see him again soon. I hope I do. And even if I don’t see him as soon as I’d like, I know that he’ll always be there for me, in his awkward way, just as I’ll be there for him, for all of them, in my own awkward way. It’s the only way it can be, for them and me. 

一期一会 was the first thing you taught me, after all.