I haven't slept for the past few days. I haven't showered for about a week either. All I can hear in my head is the sound of '99 Luftballons' and childhood memories of the Berlin Wall. I'm a nostalgic quivering wreck of nerves, a giant ball of sweaty pubic hair and alcohol fueled vitriol. I'm losing weight thanks to pure laziness and a desire to eat nothing whatsoever. I'm not even depressed. But I'm not even happy either... What the hell is wrong with me?

Hast du etwas Zeit für mich, dann singe ich ein Lied für dich...

Japan is now firmly on the horizon. My certificate of eligibility is winging its way to my doorstep sometime this week (bizarrely my Uni have decided to send it themselves rather than it coming direct from the Japanese government) and now its just up to me to finalise travel dates etc. Whilst I would love to go early, its a matter of studying and preparation. If I was to leave at the end of August or even the first few days of September - I would be going with zero preparation, both mentally and logistically. Simply put I haven't prepared much for Japan. I don't even know what I want to do when I get there. Erm yeah. The entire experience is kinda flat at the minute. Its like I don't care tbh, but at the same time I do but am powerless to change my opinions or mood. I don't know how I'm going to survive out there for a year, leaving the UK behind. I've still yet to feel excited about this. Its feeling like one giant inconvenience.

Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont, hielt man für Ufos aus dem All, darum schickte ein General

Japan is basically like one giant blur on the horizon. Something I've waited for two year but now the entire experience is leaving me with the mood of complete apathy. I'm more interested in leaving the UK and experiencing being a student elsewhere rather than experiencing Japan itself. Japan has just become a friend to me, rather than an intimate lover.

99 Kriegsminister...Streichholz und Benzinkanister.

My Japanese lnguage ability has taken a nosedive of late and I really, REALLY need to start studying again. I've simply forgotten so much and I need to get these fears out of my head. So much kanji, grammar and vocab - I've simply been to preoccupied with wasting time and have neglected the Japanese. My goals have simply not been set.

Well fuck that.

Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger, Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr...

That's not gonna keep me down.

Und auch keine Düsenflieger, heute zieh' ich meine Runden....

Because, tomorrow I'm back to these kanji and stomping Japanese to the curb.

Seh' die Welt in Trümmern liegen, Hab' 'nen Luftballon gefunden

You hear me Japanese? You are going to fucking die!!!!

Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen

*ugh* I probably need to get some sleep and possibly a change of song.

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.

I'm loving this band at the minute. They are an electro-pop band from Russia and are probably going to be cutting it up on dancefloors and radio stations very soon. They are called Telsa Boy and you should probably check them out.

Spirit of the Night




Electric Lady



Why is the 80's electro-funk type stuff so popular these days? Still, you gotta love it! *dances*

Exam results are out tomorrow and to celebrate, I think I am now officially single again. Huzzah! Or at least by default I'm single again. *shrug*

I'm not looking forward to the results quite frankly, and more to the point - I don't care one jot. Not one little bit. Nada. Nothing. In fact, I might not even bother looking up the grades. Its pointless. I've probably failed or possibly scraped a pass. Meh, its only Japanese. I mean its not even that important a language or culture. There I said it. I want to go on a big rant against Japan but I really couldn't be arsed, because I'm still feeling a little sick and a bit sad now that singlehood is back on me. Oh well, should have some fun in Japan. NOT. :-p

laters folks.

I'm typing this message at the minute and feeling like utter shite. My throat is red raw, my sinuses feel all blocked up, my lungs feel tired and my joints are swelling. Its fair to say I'm under the weather.

This is all magnified by the horrors of Swine Flu that is hanging around the world at the minute. If indeed, I am one person in a million to have contracted it, perhaps I should feel slightly lucky that I have been bestowed as one of the first thousand odd sufferers in the UK.

In all honesty, I think I have contracted what my Japanese flatmate had last week and its only just kicked in. The most annoying thing is, is that I'm trying to hit the gym three times a week and study Japanese at the library and this goddamn cold/flu/virus whatever is preventing me from keeping to my schedule. It might be God's way of telling me that I should be overweight and not be studying Japanese during my 'time off'. Well whichever way theologians and philosophers wish to mewl about it, I feel like absolute crap right now. I hope to this comedian up in the sky that it clears up soon. Thank God, I'm not feeling like this two months down the line, otherwise it may be quarantine in Narita airport time.

I would love to know how one surives in Sheffield without a laptop, an Ipod, a book to read or quite litterally in the case of me - absolutely nothing in my room.

This is the harsh reality facing me at the moment, as I sit all alone in Sheffield, flatmates deserted in a room that has been stripped clean, waiting for the soul-filling journey that will take me from the City of Steel to the City of Donny and then onwards onto Darlington, then home-sweet-home. The past 22 months or so have been the greatest and most emotionally challenging of my life and it is one to which I close a chapter to with thanks to the people who have made this possible, and then onto writing a new chapter with the large emblazoned headline of Japan, which will become the starting point of the next 14 months or so of my life.

Its very sad to leave the people I care about in Sheffield; close and random friends, inspirational guides, well-wishers, my teachers and lecturers and everyone else who has supported me in making this small dream become a big reality. What I am facing at the moment is a huge pivot in my life, the turning point not just for the here and now, but possibly for the rest of my life. I enter the tunnel as one man and will leave it as another - for better or for worse.

I start my life again at ground zero (albeit with a few friends and classmates in Japan to help me if I get stuck) and enter a mystical world which I do not see as the glittery lights of Shinjuku or the hazy sunsets of a cherry-blossom spring in Yoyogi Koen. I see this chapter as representing anything but Japan. Japan is merely a by-word, something that is environmental to my changing state of being, a changing state of my inner-self from one form to the next.

This change is confronting me with tons of emotions that range from dangerous interpretation and cynicism to childhood excitement and anxiety. Every single one feels like a sharp prickly pin-drop that pierces into my sweaty, clamoured body. It keeps me awake at night. Its all I ever think about. Not the journey of simply going to Japan - but the journey that will awaken me spiritually and emotionally. I hope that this journey brings me fortune, and helps me discover myself and what I want to do - because right now I am unsure of what the future brings to the table and whether or not I want to eat what is front of me regardless of how juicy it may seem to the person standing next to me.

Yes, I will miss Sheffield. I will miss everyone who has had a part in my life for the past 22 months. But ultimately, I am going to miss the person who is sitting here typing this and who leave the UK in the next 2 months. I will miss him. Because I don't know if 14 months from now, he will be the same person.

I am being told that Sheffield will not be quite the same without me, but I think it is me who will not be quite the same without Sheffield.

And it is that closing comment that ends this rather turbulent chapter in my life. Thank you Sheffield for all the memories, onwards Japan and the potential wonders it may bring.

Today was Canada Day (what do you mean you didn't know?) so to celebrate, I donned my Toronto Maple Leafs top and headed off to Whitby for some sun, sand and sex sunburn.

Whitby is a cracking little town. It takes about 1 hour on the train from my hometown - which is only because of all the little scenic stops along the way across the stunning Esk Valley. Its an beautiful added inconvenience in a sunny day such as today.

The photos are now on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24695970@N04/sets/72157620826086386/

The weather was baking hot, even though the day started off pretty cloudy. The entire UK is being slowly oven-roasted at the minute, with temperatures in the capital expected to hit around 35 degrees (!!!) Oh well, this gives me good preparation for Japan, albeit without the raging humidity. The UK gets about 50 to 60% relative humidity, whereas Tokyo averages slightly higher at around 60 to 70% - and trust me that extra 10% adds even more to the heat.

At the moment, I am planning more routinely for Tokyo now - given that its going to be slightly warmer than the UK. I won't be needing any winter wear most of the time, so big stuffy coats are a no-no as of now. I would imagine even in January, Tokyo doesn't get as cold as the UK does or can do. But still, I think am going on the basis of it will be like the UK + 5, the extra 5 accounting for temperature throughout the year.

Anyways, enough of that. I'm back off to Sheffield tomorrow to clean the flat, my room, get my deposit back, buy a backpack, possibly get some nandos, have some beer and then say my teary goodbyes. ;-(

Back on Saturday and into the 'routine' of using my summer productively, as of July 6th. Argh! These kanji and vocab are killing me.