You never know what it's like until you do it yourself

Sorry I have been slacking on the posts, I have been too busy dealing with Swine Flu. Well, not really but it's a good excuse. As far as my finals go, I had four classes. One of them we had an oral presentation that was 80% of our grade so that basically was the final. Another one was a take home that was handed out before the Swine Flu mess and I am just about finished with it. In another class we had a paper due on the day of the final so my teacher emailed us saying we could either do the paper or the final as a take home, I already had the paper done so I picked that option. The last class I had the teacher didn't feel comfortable just giving us a take home so he just factored the final out of the grading process and will be grading us on all of our assignments up until this fiasco. All and all I got away pretty easy. They still cancelled our graduation ceremony. And we didn't get to say goodbye to a lot of people or our teachers. Boo.

Every place in my city is sold out of face masks but we went into Osaka yesterday and hardly anyone was wearing one. I am not worried about it at all but they are advising us to wear masks to the airport and on the plane since airplanes are bacteria cesspools anyways. I bought some for the flight but don't plan on wearing them until then. The hysteria has infected some of my friends here and I think they think I am crazy for really not giving a shit. 

I cannot believe my time in Japan is over. The past month has been the best. I have gotten to know my flat mate Becca more and a few others from school and my dorm. I really like Becca a lot. She is 19 but she doesn't seem like it. I don't even know what that means really. She's been here for a year and I admire that she is young and has done something like this, all on her own. She's very bright and fun and reminds me a lot of Sierra. Not so much their personalities, hell maybe it's just because she's small and spunky. We've spent a lot of time together the past month and I really will miss her. I'm not sure if I will ever see any of these people again, nothing personal but we live in different worlds. I know though, if I am ever in their neck of the woods and vice versa, we would gladly put each other up. 

When I first got here I often wondered what in the hell I was doing. I had never felt so out of place. February was hell and dragged on. I honestly never felt so lonely in my life. March was bittersweet, had amazing visitors and an awesome time on spring break but then just like that...it was over. April came and I hurt my ankle and this has pretty much laid me out for the past eight weeks. I think I missed out on a lot because I was crippled. However April and May have flown by. I cannot believe that I will be home soon. It's so surreal. I think it might be hard coming home and trying to return to my life. I am excited but I feel nervous. So many things are going to be weird like eating or being social.  I guess it will be just like when I came here, a lot of people told me what to expect from their experiences of traveling, living or studying abroad either in Japan or elsewhere but really no one can prepare you for an experience like this. People keep telling me what it's going to be like when I go home but really I won't know what it's like until I actually do it. I can't wait.