Returning Home @ MindSay

I got home a couple of days ago and am now in Detroit with my girlfriend. The strangest thing is how normal it feels. It's like I never left, but I feel different. I know that I was spared the annoying media blitz behind "Snakes on a Plane"; a movie that I don't plan on seeing because the campy-ness of it wore off around February for me. The weather is a vast improvement and I'm still adjusting to the jet-lag (usually takes me around 5-7 days to get back to 100%). I am returning to Chicago this Sunday and have to take a language assessment test in order to prove... something. My ability in Japanese I suppose.

Truth be told I miss my friends from Japan already. Most have already retreated to their respective parts of the globe but I've had some success in contacting a few. I've even been able to stay in contact with some of the Korean students still in Japan, and that makes me very happy as I expressed fears of losing them forever before. But I would like to see them, talk with them face to face. Some I will see again, like my dorm mate who lives in New Jersey... others I will see in the future, like the one Korean girl who is coming to visit America next year and I will house for however long she needs... but most I will simply get a friendly email with some pictures from on occasion and that will be it.

I'm also not too sure what to do with myself. I'm just sitting around waiting to move into the dorms right now. It's a nice little vacation but it was like going from 90 mph to 0 mph in a split second, and I'm kinda feeling the whiplash from it.

Everything is different now. That's not a bad thing tho. I see the world differently. Nothing is wrong, nor have I changed my mind about anything that I felt strongly about before I left. Yet still, things are different. Better. Food tastes better, the air smells cleaner, I have more confidence than ever before. I spent five and a half months outside of the walls I built around myself that both protected and limited me. When I returned I found those walls destroyed. The landscape is the same, only now I can see and travel farther then I ever thought possible.

In conclusion:
If you are still in college or will be going soon, study abroad. Don't just consider it, do it. Choose a country that you are interested in but is outside of your heritage. Learn from it. Remember everything from it, good and bad. Learn, laugh, cry, study and play. There is no substitute for experience and you only have yourself to blame if you don't do it.
-Maru!

This will be my last entry concerning my KCP Study Abroad terms. I plan on going back to Japan to teach English (Jet Programme or equivalent) and continue studying the language next year. Once I have that worked out I will resume posting in this blog about that. Thank you for everyone who read this and anyone who may stumble upon it in the future. I hope it helps you in your decision to go overseas or at least gives you a few chuckles.

I rubbed my eyes wearily and glanced at my watch. Wha…? Three in the morning? Why was everyone yelling? Wait a second…where was I?

I pulled myself into a sitting position, the airport chairs utterly unforgiving. Ah, yes. Auckland. Awaiting my flight to Dunedin in the morning. With just my backpack, because my luggage had once again been lost, this time simply left in Sydney for no discernable reason. Oh well, it was just all of my clothes and most of what I owned. Just everything I need.

I shook my head to clear it of the crankiness. Now wasn’t the time. People yelling in an airport at three in the morning does not often bode well for anyone. I adjusted my glasses and looked around. Everyone was staring, transfixed, at the television screen. Was everyone waiting for a flight or something…?

Then it clicked. The All Blacks were playing Ireland. The time delay. Ohhhhh.

It was going to be a very long day. Literally. With time changes, and heading back to Houston, one day was going to be stretched across forty-one hours and still retain the same date. But the day got better as it progressed, though it was still frenzied. I flew from Auckland to Dunedin later that day, took a shuttle back to 10c Moat, stuffed my few remaining belongings in a bag, ordered another shuttle, and sat down to breathe while the flat descended into full chaos. Marco, Dan, and Christa were also leaving the same day along with a couple of friends and a neighbour, headed for the north part of the South Island for weeks of tramping through forest, mountain, beach, and everything in between. Some of us would not return to 10c, and so the frantic packing was tempered with a few moments of sitting around and talking as though we’d see each other the next day and the day after that, and the one after that, though this was really goodbye.

I’ve never been good at goodbyes. Period. There simply haven’t been many times when I had to look someone in the eyes, and know that I probably will never see him or her again. So rather than tears being shed, jokes were exchanged, and 10c was as vibrant as ever in its final moments.

I was the last to leave, the flat strangely quiet while Hayley and I stood by the door waiting for my shuttle. This really was it. She and I joked a bit, avoiding acknowledgment of the end. 10b and 10a Moat were similarly quiet, as the occupants had also mostly emptied out.

And then it was time. There was a honk, and a driver strode to the door briskly, calling loudly. I picked up my bags, gave Hayley a tight hug and a few hurried words of goodbye, and walked away from Moat Street. I glanced back once, but Hayley had already disappeared from sight.

The day passed in moments that lingered, hours that flew. I claimed my luggage (though I can’t say “without incident”…grumble) upon my return to Auckland, and met up with only two other Arcadia kids, a trio of three from the original thirteen. Others had gone home early or delayed their trip, so we stuck together throughout our wait and flight, and toasted our time in New Zealand with one final glass of chardonnay, as two of us would soon relinquish our freedom and be underage once more. I chuckled quietly to myself as I glanced at the nighttime sky. I arrived in New Zealand in the early morning, and was leaving late at night. How appropriate.

In the hustle and bustle of clearing customs in LA, I lost sight of the other two Arcadians as I was accosted by a solicitor who told me that he used to go to Rice University, and played football for “Coach Ken” and he even designed and did the tattoo on his arm himself, in just under three hours, and…the tales grew taller. I rolled my eyes and walked away, knowing that I had just bungled yet another farewell.

As I waited for my flight, I wondered at the knot of anxiety growing in my stomach. What was wrong? My luggage was fine, I had all of my documents, customs had found no flaw in my belongings, yet…I looked around at the drawn faces around me in the airport terminal. Every face was a reflection of my own brooding, and I realized that this tenseness, this anxiety, this worry that I felt was just how it was to be in this place. The politeness and smiles I had received from the New Zealand staff were replaced with harassed-looking faces, half-snapped commands. I supposed then that this was my critique on American society after being away from it for so long. Many people comment on the rampant materialism and like things, but Australia and New Zealand are cut from similar molds, and so to me, there was not a major difference in that realm. The difference was in the attitudes. Even in bustling Sydney, the mood was relaxed, a sort of “Eh…whenever” feel about the place that told all who entered to just chill, everything would work out in the end. In LA, I could feel the stress, desperate to consume my newfound calm. On that final flight to Houston, I thought wearily, How can people live like this? How can people exist in such a worked-up state?

Suddenly, it was all over, and I was greeting my beautiful girlfriend and brother at the baggage claim. After all that time, some things hadn’t changed, and for a moment, for one single moment, it felt like I hadn’t left at all, like my entire experience was already a fading dream.

I walked out into the night with my companions and luggage. Back in Houston…what would it be like?

This morning I watched the parents of a soldier stand tall, with heads held high and tears streaming down their faces as their son was brought home in a casket with the United States flag draped over it. As I saluted, for a split second I hated everything that flag stood for. Why? Because it could have been my son. I thought about the soldier's parents and what they were going through and the things they still had to go through. I took them through the steps of what was going to be done and what needed to be done. He was the strong one, she could barely stand. As I looked at her I saw her age, I saw her die inside. She looked at me and whispered, "I want to go with him." She has two other children but she wasn't thinking about them at that moment. She just wanted to be with her child, she wanted him back. She broke down after that, and instead of turning to her husband, she turned to me.  I am a mother and I am the mother of a soldier and I am a soldier. She turned to me because I would understand as a mother what it would be like to lose a child even though I haven't. I'm not trying to belittle a father's feelings, but a mother would feel differenly. I wanted to post this soldier's name so that he could be prayed for by name but that didn't seem right and his parents have asked me not to. So I ask those of you who pray, to pray for all the the soldiers. And for any soldier out there reading this, God Bless You and call your mother and tell her you love her.