My nerves

Hi, everyone. I haven't posted in quite a while and summer has been chugging by slowly. I didn't feel the need to post on DC right after I went and came back because of some ill feelings I had, and I'd hate to get in trouble for it. However, in retrospect I can look back on some things fondly.

I met quite a few cool people when I was there, and not one of them was going to Japan. They also came from all over the US, making me feel at ease. Sometimes it's easy to get disconcerted over making friends in a new environment when no one knows each other, but this trip gave me new confidence. A lot of us just sort of clicked even though we were only there for a couple days. There was Matt and George, heading off to China. Luckily they had both traveled around asia before and knew a bit of Japanese that transformed into a couple running jokes as we traversed DC. Then there was Megan who was going to Morocco. She definitely lit up the trip a bit with her go-getting personality. They were all well-spoken intellectual people around the same age which restores a little bit of my faith in humanity and my generation. While not one of them was going to the same place I was, it was easy to hang back and enjoy our little mini trip together as NSEP awardees. Matt suggested this awesomely fantastic restaurant in DC, and if I can recall the name of it then I will definitely mention it here. We all went out to dinner and ordered a bunch of the cheaper entries to split. "Cheaper" is a sort of misnomer because it was all gourmet and delicious. In particular, the cheese and bread platter and the roasted chicken stood out. Really awesome. If any of you guys are reading this, I hope you're all doing well and enjoying your study abroad!

I don't leave until next Thursday.

So now I have to get all my prepping done starting today. I'm getting increasingly nervous over it no matter what I tell myself. I'm about to venture and try to pick up a few things that I need today, but I also need to send out for my visa and call the Japanese airport about medicine I need to bring. I tried doing that last night, but I guess I can't call out of the country on my home phone? So I'm going to buy an asia calling card. It probably won't be more than like a five minute call, but whatever.

I've been trying to make mental lists as well as physical ones on what to do and what to bring, but I still feel like I'm not ready. All the advice and all the information I've looked up seems to just be a disembodied cloud of nonsense to me right about now. Who can tell me which t-shirts to bring? Haha. I'm overthinking it to the max, I know, but that's just my style.

So here I am, looking out on the horizon. Hi, Nagoya, here I come.