Standing Up on the Inside

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Dear TravelBlog forgive me for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last entry.

I am now out on Long Island enjoying another summer vacation spent by the beach. It has been a little less relaxing then usual with my impending move to Japan getting ever closer, complete with Japanese lessons, and getting myself a clean bill of health before I go. However, once you get out here it is impossible not to get in a relaxed state of mind. The air here is just different. I smell the familiar scents, which is a combination of sea air and woodland sanctuary. It's like I tap into the relaxation from all the past summers.

I had wanted to take some pictures at the beach when the sun was shining since I arrived here on July 4th weekend. Now that I am in countdown to Japan mode, I leave in 26 days, I figured I better get down there to take them. I lazed around all day reading about summer basketball, but at 4pm the sun finally showed up and I thought now was the time. However, when I got to the beach, a five minute drive from my house, the sun had disappeared once again. No matter, I took the pictures anyway. The ocean was cold and bracing today. As I plunged into the waves I was invigorated. I alternated rising high above the waves and diving underneath them. I love the ocean, if for some reason I couldn't be a teacher I would want to become a professional bodysurfer.

It has been strange to try to cram all of my summer into just one month. I am usually out here all summer, but since I leave for Japan in the beginning of August I have to enjoy it while I can. My Japanese lessons are going pretty well, but there is no way I will be able to come close to being able to converse in it before I get to Sapporo. I have however completely learned and mastered, Hiragana, the first of the three different forms of Japanese writing. I think they have three different types of writing just to confuse us Gaijin.

A deer and her fawn just walked by my window by the way. So that's it for now I will continue to prepare for my journey over the next four weeks. I still can't fathom that I'll be living in Japan for at least the next two years. It is going to be so different. Living at home the past five years has been wonderful, but I am so ready now to be on my out on own and taking each new experience and adventure as they come. What will my life be like? I know I won't be the same person at the end of the two years. I feel that in the past couple of weeks I have become reacquainted with what's important in life, as the result of some stuff, and I feel that I am reaching a good place to begin the next chapter.


"I'm not going to think about what I would have done or should have done. I'm leaving all that behind, and I am looking ahead for the good things God has in store for me."
-Joel Osteen

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Photos

Running Toward the Surf
Atlantic Ocean

My textbook
Studying Japanese on the beach.

Ocean
Thinking about what my life will be like.