In-betweentimes.

Summer school is over. I passed, it seems, as I was awarded a certificate to that end at the Center's end-of-the-program party. I also have a finished final exam, sporting a higher grade than I have ever received on a test related to the Japanese language, to serve as supporting evidence. At the same time, I wouldn't be very surprised if tomorrow morning found me rushing at 9:25 to the train station yet again, since I don't feel as if I have any purpose being here without classes.

On the last day of school, and half the students' last full day in Japan, I somehow ended up spending around 9 hours "partying" with my classmates. For the first 4 of those hours or so, I mostly felt out of place (and, at times, oily and/or sweaty) but, after the second half, thanks to drinking, I began to have a good time. This still somehow resulted in me and my one-friend-in-Japan whispering to each other, in the middle of one party, that we felt completely out of place, and then using centrifugal force to swirl around on the barstools to show that we could make our own fun without social interaction. And really, it makes me quite sad, when I've seen some of the ridiculously intense friendships that have sprung up between some of the students in the program over just a month and a half, and compare that to my own general hermitly habits. I suppose this is a good experience to keep in mind when the fall program starts -- bond quick, and bond early.

In a way this same experience is mirrored when I find myself bored and wasting time on Facebook. Scanning through other people's enthusiastic wall posts and suchlike often makes me feel envious of people who make more, and stronger, friendly bonds with the people around then than I do. Yet that feeling is rarely accompanied by some big desire to make a renewed effort to become close with whoever's profile it is I'm looking at. . . . This sort of thing makes me really wonder just what magical set of kin-like relationships it is I'm envious of in other people, and hoping to find in the future.

I should point out, though, that once I did hit some critical stage in my being-around-people + drinking, I did have a good time. I actually sang karaoke (and paid for the privilege), taught someone how to make fried rice, did an assortment of stupid dances while sitting, and got to do a great evening-ender sing along to "Hey Jude" with ten other students (all of whom whose names I actually know). At the end of the night, I ended up letting a drunk fellow student who had missed his last train sleep on the floor of my room (+futon and blanket), which I suppose nominates me for sainthood. He made up for the fact that I couldn't much sleep through his snoring and a fear he might die of alcohol poisoning in his sleep by saying a lot of nice things about how he couldn't believe we hadn't become friends earlier in the program. So, at least +alcohol, there must be a little charm left in me somewhere.

I suppose I will have a lot of time to mediate on my random desires and failings over the next three weeks, though, as I will be spending a hell of a lot of time airborne. And at home, which nearly guarantees that I will have to spend hours after everyone else has gone to sleep scanning through late-night television and feeling out of place. Even if the trip home goes well, which I am not expecting of this one, the feelings of boredom and lost freedom while I stay there are enough to kill me dead (at least mentally). This results in a lot of insomnia, or at least a lot of falling asleep at 4am to a terrible infomercial, and generally doesn't do much to make life seem more worth living.

Oh, and, since it wouldn't be my life if this weren't true, I also somehow once again owe a lot of people money that I may very well not be able to deliver on. At least this time it's UCLA's fault instead of mine.

Now I should probably be about the business of putting everything that isn't coming back to the States with me in a series of boxes, I suppose?