I should be writing a paper instead of updating this old thing, but I'm not.

One of the first things I thought of upon checking this old place and reminiscing about my posts was that I really should get around to changing the title. I definitely did indeed spend a month in Tokyo and I definitely did indeed spend most of it studying at Sophia University, better known in the native language as Jouchi Daigaku (上智大学). But really, as I'm wont to do on big trips like that one, I wasn't committed enough to actually dole out an entry a day like I had hoped. Hopefully the historians will be able to forgive me for that should my life story somehow become imperative to learn. I like to think I made up for the lack of text with 700-plus digital photos taken. That should equate to at least 700,000 words, if the colloquialism isn't wrong.

But I digress. Yet again.

Really, I've been digressing from a lot of things today. I still have another paper to write about a memoir that I actually really enjoy, but I'm ironically abandoning that project temporarily to pursue this one.

I don't understand how I think either.

That being said, I thought I would take the time to let my mind meander post-trip and do another quasi-stream of consciousness blog with no real structure, but plenty of contemplation a plenty. I suppose a reflection on the trip and also my current relationship with the Japanese language as a whole fits into the mission of the blog, whatever that might actually be.

Let's proceed, once more, into a blog entry with italicized headings a plenty.

Man am I glad to not be studying abroad for another year in a row.

I really loved my time at Sophia University. Adored it. I may very well reapply to go to that school again either under the auspices of study abroad again for a much longer term or just on my own time. Who's to say which way I'll go? But alas, I'm still glad to not be repeating the process for another summer. The reasons are mostly personal and circumstantial. While I am a student at heart, the workload at Sophia at a time that was otherwise still vacation for me wasn't something I enjoyed. I love to learn, but I love to just live even more and sometimes that means separating education from my life. My brain needs time to cool down after what are usually fairly intensive academic fall and spring semesters, even if I tend to go about them with a somewhat casual air while they're still in progress.

But really, it also doesn't hurt to not have to fill out so much damn paperwork. Form-filling, bureaucracy, and I haven't ever gotten along completely well, so suffice it to say that I found the application process last year to be tedious. It went for a very good cause, but I also didn't want to replicate the hassles of fetching gobs upon gobs of legal forms, writing frivolous essays in which I somehow justify my motivations for applying, and just putting up with the amount of time required to get every single last detail nailed out. I can very easily grind through them if I absolutely have to. This all ultimately ties into my next thought, which can be summed up as...

Man am I glad that I'm going there this summer just for vacation.

I like to think that I'm studious and work hard when situations call for it, but I also appreciate downtime. Peace, I've found, is a necessary counterbalance to impose upon one's own life in a world often filled with hectic anarchy. Going to Tokyo under a study abroad program is a move I'm glad I made; it gave me great primers on how to get around Japan, gave me first-hand interactions with natives, and really just gave me the opportunity to live in such a vibrant international capitol.

The main problem with all that is that the nature of the program had a knack for getting in the way of my free time. I deliberately made sure I had as much time as I could spare to just roam Tokyo and aimlessly explore the streets, but the reality was that I also had commitments to fulfill while I was there, which meant I had to unfortunately put some of my own personal goals aside. Chief among these was conversational Japanese practice; the fact that a good chunk of my time was spent in English-speaking environments coupled with (admittedly) my own shyness meant that I wasn't necessarily in the best environment to practice spoken Japanese, as well as the general issues attached to being a newbie to the language in general meant that my competence probably didn't perceivably go up at all. While that example had some personal issues mixed in as well, the overall point is that certain factors at the time both within and beyond my control inhibited certain goals and desires I had in mind.

Since I more or less decided as soon as I had returned to the US that I would be travelling again to Japan in the summer of 2010, I wanted to do the trip entirely on my own terms. Save for a vague travel itinerary that might dictate when I change cities, I want my next trip to be without any inhibitions whatsoever. I'll decide how my day goes entirely and take it from there. This should ideally give me opportunities a plenty to pursue longer-term goals that I was unable to really address the first time, especially linguistically. Hopefully operating entirely freely will allow me to really try my hand at conversational practice in non-academic settings, for example, which is ultimately a matter of admitting to them upfront that I'm still very new at the language and that if they could kindly reply to me slowly, it would be greatly appreciated. That one is bound to require repeat trips and continual immersion, but having friends along with me on the trip that I've been studying Japanese with since day one should make it significantly easier. Two or three of us can probably get through a Japanese conversation much better than just me as the only speaker in the group.

This mentality also spills over into more immediately attainable goals, though, like visiting areas I neglected on the first trip. This is especially true with places outside of Tokyo in general, which is why I'm going to try to go to great lengths to visit other places (and especially the countryside!) in much greater detail when I return this coming summer.

I'm getting tired. I'd better stop this now.

I was going to ramble on a bit about how Japanese classes have gotten more difficult over the new semester now that the credits actually count towards my major and not just general language requires for liberal arts students, but really that just boils down to me having a no shit Sherlock moment and remembering that the writing nerd in me loves the opportunity to expand his methods to express himself and is ultimately okay with it.

Dammit, that wasn't really a concise summary anyway. Urgh. You get the, er, gist, though. Probably.

Anyway. I'm sleepy. I need to shower. And I have the Persona 3 soundtrack I bought from the lovely Tower Records in Tokyo playing in my headphones right now. Now's probably as good a time as any to stop this. So I will. Here's hoping I just might remember to actually post more material in the future. Without every proofreading it, of course.