Half way

I left the Minneapolis International Airport 49 days ago. In 49 days, I'll be going back.

I'd be lying if I said that I haven't had bad moments of missing home and wanting to go home. I'd also be lying if I said I didn't feel on top of the world quite a bit. Unfortunately, there have been a great many instances of the former. So many so that I've been driven to keep a countdown of the days and weeks to my return home.

I Skyped home today, and I spoke with my parents. I quoted my time left to my dad, and he shared with me a piece of advice that has been written into vast library of his words that I have saved in my mind. "You're in Japan right now...in two months you won't be."

It struck me, that sentence. In 50 days, I will be sitting among my wonderful family, eating Christmas dinner, opening Christmas presents, and having some Christmas beers before heading outside to work on my car in a state of inebriated elation.

Until that time, I will be in a country 6,000 miles away in one of the greatest countries in the world, sleeping on a futon, taking classes from a a German, a Brit, an Indian, and a Japanese woman. I will be living off of rice, curry, gyoza, ramen, tonkatsu, and any number of other Japanese foods. I will be spending my time with one German, one Ecuadorian, two Norwegian, and 22 American students. All of whom come from drastically different cultural backgrounds.

Every day I will walk three and a half miles to and from school. This trip will cross the hypocenter of a nuclear bomb, and at least two other memorials to that tragedy. Along the way each day I will pass three pachinko parlors, four hair salons, one walmart, one toys r us, three McDonald's, two ramen shops, five gas stations, one Home Depot-esque thing, more convenience stores than I care to counts, and a matching number of other miscellaneous tiny mom n' pop shops.

I have listed so many things above, but in the timeline that will one day show my years from start to finish, this trip to Japan will be such a small portion of a much grander life. It will register as just a blip. It will be good to smile a little more, take deeper breaths, take shorter steps, and say hi a few more times each day.