Tonight is the first night of winter vacation and I find myself sitting at home, alone. I'm not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it seems like I should feel depressed. On the other hand, I don't feel depressed so maybe I shouldn't dwell on it.
I've spent the last several weeks engulfed in apathy and dripping with frustration. I'm reasonably sure that it's a direct result of one of the lower elbows of the culture shock 'W' I was told about, but I can't be sure. I'm made to believe that I am going to make a lot of friends, but things don't seem to be heading that way with anyone. I can't get Japanese people to talk to me and the other exchange students like me sometimes, but then don't like me other times. I'm reasonably sure that we're all riding the same ride and when we are dipping into the bottom of our respective 'W's, it's hard to want to talk to the new people. Sometimes you see the new people as your only lifeline and sometimes they are part of everything that is frustrating you.
I genuinely feel bad for not writing in this thing as much as I was, but as you can probably tell, I just haven't had as many life changing experiences. My time has been spent avoiding schoolwork and trying to cling to what little Japanese I can as we rush through chapter after chapter. It's definitely not a bad experience, but things are just so busy and exhausting that it's hard to want to keep going. I'm really glad that we have the next two weeks off so I can maybe spin down my engine a bit and try to get excited about Japanese again.
I hope that I have more awesome things to write about next time.
