Friday. Friday, January 22, 2010. At 11:30am I depart from SFO and begin my adventure in Osaka. My adventure, like any other, has already begun with the anticipation. Freshman year I was super excited to go on study abroad in general. Sophomore year I was still excited but felt some apprehension because my beloved classmates would be separated for an academic year as every 3rd year student must go on study abroad for a semester.
As a departing junior, the excitement is still there but the person who will leave SFO will not be the same person upon homecoming, this makes me nervous. I anticipate the adventure itself with excitement but anticipate my reintegration into American culture with nervousness. This is because the people I am leaving behind may not appreciate the altered version of myself, or perhaps we will lose contact completely.
On a lighter note, I’ve been craving greasy, fatty American foods for the past two weeks. Yesterday, the Japanese food cravings started kicking in with a yearning for Tonkatsu, today it’s Yakisoba, tomorrow, maybe Katsuage, who knows? To my stomach’s dissatisfaction, I will be staying in a dorm for the first week, probably without access to a cafeteria meal plan, so maybe those cravings will be satisfied, not by a wonderful host mother who can cook like no other, but by a 7-Eleven microwave dinner. Speaking of 7-Eleven, I’ll need money for the first month of existence… I’m broke, damn.
