14 days to go until Sheffield has to tighten its stomach muscles and close its mouth...

It now Saturday, Boro are just an hour away from embarrassing themselves at home to Stoke (the last time we played Stoke at home we lost one nil in the pissing rain) and I'm now having just weird random thoughts about my life and my future life at Sheff.

I seem to be thinking about losing things I don't have, wasting things I haven't bought and forgetting things I haven't learnt.

Anyways, I have only been to Japan twice in my life-time. Once last February in 2007 for a week and previous to that way back in 2005 when I didn't know any better. I feel a little underwhelmed having not lived in Japan and having not spent the long summers camped out in the middle of some ryokan in Magome-juku with a bowl of natto and a damp futon for company. However that is the experience I feel now. A sense of complete isolation from the world. A complete disconnection from myself and the things around me. I need Sheffield, whiskey and some Japanese people to reel me back in and get me back to my (un)usual self...

In many ways however I feel more confident and buoyed by the fact that my Japanese is not that bad - and its capable enough having not lived in Japan for a long period and having only just started studied this language two years to the day last week. Before then, I couldn't read, write or speak anything - and now I am being politely undermined by the Japanese リチャードさんは上手ですね。 God, I hate the Japanese so much sometimes. LOL. You can never tell if they really think your Japanese is good or are just humouring you. Credit to my flatmate, who will cut it straight with you - a rarity for a Japanese person.

I am now in the advanced stages of planning my second year - and I'm having to budget A LOT, especially now that I am travelling over the summer as well as across Japan next year (hopefully.) My parents are doing the softly softly approach of dropping hints whenever I mention travelling next summer ("better start saving then...") So far I have about £500 in savings, which should see me across Siberia. Perhaps I should just stop there, find a rustic town, teach English to the locals, marry the beautiful mayor's daughter, settle down and forgot all this Japanese rubbish. Or maybe not...

God I think I'm going insane.

I need some Sheffield to calm me down.