Hey Ya’ll!
Like I said in my placement post, there were several things making this abstract concept of moving to a foreign country seem much more concrete than usual! Because ‘The Call’ came on Monday night (I’m fully aware that sounds Death-Eaterish), I Googled obsessively through until Tuesday morning , on which I emailed my acceptance of the placement. Lo and behold, just a little while later my first contact came through from Interac’s Mito Branch! Mito is the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture, home of Hokota and thus, it is the branch I will be working with. They sent an email with two attachments that were like a fresh drop of water to a woman who’d been wasting away in a desert of uncertainty and “I don’t know when I’m leaving yet, nor where I will be going! Leave me alone!”
One attachment outlined the car payment and reimbursement info, because yes, this is a driving assignment, and yes, the Japanese drive on the wrong side of the road. I fully expect to bring home a few outrageously-funny-yet-at-the-same-time-life-threatening stories about this fact. The second attachment was even more wonderous; the date I need to leave the U.S. of A., the hotel I will be staying at in Tokyo during training, and how long before I get to leave for Hokota! (Insert sigh of blissful relief.)
So, naturally, me and my mom begin scouring the Web for cheap one-way flights (one-way! How supremely exciting is THAT?!) and find ‘The One’. Leaving LAX on March 20th so as to land on the evening of the 21st in Tokyo. TOKYO! I swear I need to stop staring at this confirmation email like it’s my lifeline and start being a real person in the real world again.
Because with an adventure like this looming, is it any wonder I have trouble living in the present instead of the future? I’m constantly hauling myself back because I know that if I forget about today, tomorrow will come too soon and I will have missed almost 2 months that I have left with my family and friends. It’s okay to be crazy, stupidly, obsessively excited. Otherwise I may wonder if I’m doing the right thing. But I can’t forget where I am right here and right now because it’s a thoroughly loving and wonderful place to be. And I know I’m going to be crazy, stupidly, obsessively missing it at times in the coming year.
So dream on my wanderers! But remember not to waste the present whilst you do so!
Yesterday’s the past. Tomorrow’s the future. Today’s a gift. That’s why we call it the present. -Bill Keane