January 19. 2004 01:53

Packing

Oh my god, I have so much stuff... I've been packing like crazy today, ever since the morning. (I woke up surprisingly early, by the way, an hour before the alarm was set. I thought I would've slept for longer now that I had the chance, but no.) I got another small box from Kyoto Coop, but after filling it up half-way, I was looking at the amount of stuff left and started moving everything to one of the biggest boxes after all. I didn't think I would be able to fill one of those, but it's surprisingly easy... And I've sent two boxes already ^_^;; I came here to spend money, but I'm ashamed of how much I have spent. My soul is too stingy to accept that I've gotten all this stuff in just 5 months ^_^;; It's gonna be hell when I try and get that package to the post office, though, it's huge and weights a ton... I borrowed Dion's bike because it has one of those metal things in the back, the thing the second person sits on when people ride double. Mine doesn't have one and it's a bit of a problem sometimes. I'll be so ashamed in the post office with this huge package ^_^;;;;

I had to give up the plan I had of taking the kimono for the girls with me in the airplane. It's just too much, I already have a lot of other souvenirs I don't want to wait a month for. I was planning on giving the kimono to them when we had our after-christmas christmas party, but it's not working. But I have a couple of things I can give them then, and maybe we'll have an after-Japan Japan style party when the package arrives. Yeah, that might be a nice idea ^_^

I bet Dion's room is the warmest place in whole Kyoto. (He keeps the heater constantly on.) It's very comfortable. He got over the irritation he had with me sitting quiet on his bed, too. I was there today, for who knows how long... Warmth, nice and relaxing music, I didn't want to leave. I don't want to leave Kyoto. Leaving Kyoto means the end of my life here and I might never be able to get it back. In fact, I probably won't. Even if I come back to Japan, the circumstances will be totally different. There won't be manga studies like the ones this year and there won't be any of the exchange students. I won't be able to go to the boys' dorm in the evening to just sit. I have to build all that over again and I'm always so slow with that.

Sometimes I kinda feel like Dion is talking to me through talking to others. He's very brief with words with me, but he talks about things that concern me when Richard comes to the room, so I hear them anyway. Just not directly. It's interesting... Anyway, we didn't go to Mt. Hiei today so I think that plan'll be forgotten. I'll go to Nara tomorrow and I'm not sure if I want to do anything too time-consuming on Friday, in case I have some last things to take care of. I'm taking my two packages to the post office tomorrow and then I'll go to the bank to end my account, and I have my Japanese lesson and I'll go give Wuon-Gean some stuff and say Matt-sensei bye and visit the International Office. That all I'm planning to do before lunch, and then I'll leave to Nara. But the great thing is that if I get all that done, I can relax for Friday ^_^

The last few days I've been thinking about all the good food I want to eat before I leave. There's just a slight problem... If I intend to eat everything I like, I'll explode. But there are a couple of things I really want to do: I want to go to Volks to have a steak (though it seems a bit stupid at this point, to have Western food, but I've heard it's great) and I want to go to that yakitori restaurant again. I wanted to have inari sushi today, but there was none at the store. Maybe I can have that tomorrow. I ate some crockets and a pudding today, and I've had chicken katsu and tonkatsu. I ate a couple of American dogs after new year and I went to Mr. Donuts yesterday. I also want to have another marshmallow cappucchino at Starbucks, even though I never drink coffee ^_^ I'm kinda fascinated by coffee, I kinda like it as long as it's not too bitter. Maybe I could start drinking coffee at cafes. That'd be really strange. ^_^

I managed to get everyone to write something into my guestbook/memory book ^__^ Tim, Laura and Lorna left before I even realized that it was starting to be the time to leave, so I couldn't get anything from them and I'm very sad about that, but I managed to get all the boys and Wuon-Gean and even Ton. Actually, I'm missing Janeva, just realized. Maybe I could catch her tomorrow or Friday? Well, I'm very proud of the two pages with comments from the exchange students, it'll be my treasure ^_^ We've been exchanging addresses and e-mails and most of them now have my website address, so they'll probably wander here and read this diary, too... I hope I haven't embarrassed myself completely *^_^* Though having them read this doesn't bother me as much now as it did a month ago. I was afraid of how it'd affect our relationship if they read everything I wrote here, and now that I'm leaving, our relationship won't be the same anymore anyway. Shyness is such a weird thing ^_^ Well, if they're interested in me enough to read through this, I guess I'll just be happy after all.

I have very mixed feelings about public diaries... I'm sometimes surprised that I have the bravery to go through with something like this ^_^;;