Grades are in and after thankfully staying awake until 3am on Friday night, I managed to log into our university's network before everyone else did the following morning and routinely crash the server, giving people a long anxious wait over their results. Its a common occurrence sadly. I do wish they would just e-mail our results via our departments.

Anyway, I was reasonably pleased with the grades, although I felt my score for Classical Japanese was a little poor, but considering I didn't do much work for it and missed a ton of lectures post-Easter, it was more than a justified 2.1, albeit a low one. 2.1 was also my grade for Contemporary Society, again quite surprised but I normally okay on these types of things now. I also somehow managed to pass Japanese Language IV fairly successfully with no major hiccups. So now there is officially nothing stopping me going to Japan next year and then progressing onto my final year of uni.

I just hope in that final year, I can boost my grades somewhat because I am still so close to obtaining a 2.1 overall and need to push myself a little harder on all my subjects on return from Japan. I guess now that the YA looms, I've just gotta hope that I push my Japanese on and improve on my return to Sheffield, one year and a bit from now.

I've calculated that I have about 40 to 50 days until the dreaded Year Abroad, which is absolutely nothing really. The moment July ends, the shit will really hit the fan as then I know that from a month from then, Japan will seem very close. Anyways, I'm still having some huge reservations about the year abroad, some good some bad. The major ones is the lack of info surrounding where I will be living in Japan and secondly the whole rent payment procedures etc. Simply put, I have organised nothing for Japan yet, aside from buying clothes etc. The other little niggly ones are basically about the whole orientating myself in Japan and meeting many new and old friends again.

I'm a little sick of being back home at the moment. Basically because I miss my personal space and time a lot. Its just a compendium of small little things that are slowly building up and irritating me. I just want to do my own things and am annoyed at various little things getting in my way. I'm a person who often just likes to be left alone to get on with things and don't always like the incessant protrusion into my activities throughout the course of the day (and night!)

In many ways, I would love to the leave the UK right now. But I know with nothing planned and with nothing revised (my kanji and vocab list builds up by the day) it would be a pointless endeavour. Ultimately I want my Japanese to reflect the two years worth of hard work I've put in and not just the past 3 months I've wasted.

Mentally I feel a lot more stable, thanks in no part to regular exercise and a medium-to-good diet. This becoming an important process of my summer so far because it is helping keep my mind focused off other things that are causing me a little distress (women, japan, money, my language ability etc.) One of the great paradoxes of life is that we seek some type of end-goal but are less willing to take that journey that allows us to get to that goal. Like a incredibly long run, a huge marathon that we take, its always the final few steps, those final few miles that are the hardest. Right now, I'm about 2 miles away from the finishing line, I've come so far so I can't possibly quit now but these 2 miles seem like 2,000 and I'm fraught with how to deal with them.

However compared to last year, the summer seems to be flying by so far thanks in part to this routine which is keeping me more active and less brain-dead on the computer speaking to some random Japanese girls on MSN. I think coming back late from Sheffield and moving all my stuff out has had a good impact on me, as it was the 14th of June I came back last time and by about late July, I was becoming bored rigid.

Anyways, I'm just waiting for my wonderous certificate of eligiblty to arrive soon - which will allow to get my visa in Edinburgh. Hopefully that should arrive in about 2 weeks from now. And the fun of planning my journey begins!

Jaa ne.