I'm leaving on a Jet Plane...

Don't know when I'll be back again...

Good Bye America...

I hope to get a few good upgrades while I'm away.

Internet blackout begins now unless I can get some online time at the airport (last time it was still pay to get on...)

Be back in a little less than a week.

Separation Anxiety

I think one possible side effect of growing up in a single parent-only child home is that I suffer from separation anxiety.

I don't know how normal it is to take on work even after you've been terminated. Its somewhat justifiable at Scripps as my grade still somewhat depends on this, but after next week it won't matter anymore. In a way its more than simply staying loyal to the job, but I want the transition for my friends to be as smooth as possible. At Scripps this might mean leaving enough notes behind for Chris to follow and a detailed instruction path. In the few short months that he's taken on a full position, the lab has taken on more projects than they have in the past 3 years that I've worked there... so the immediate future will be busy for a long time coming. Perhaps this is because the last 3 years we had most of the work taken care of for us by Bill... but still rationalizing it doesn't make the job any easier.

For my taiko brothers and sisters, the situation doesn't change much. Asayake is taking on an endeavor greater than they ever have in the past. The group has changed much since I first started my taiko career and it pains me to leave them when they have so much to do this quarter, but alas my own path beckons. I'm envious of you guys... the concert will be an incredible experience that I have yet to take a part of, I wish I could at least be there to see you guys shine. I've done everything within reason to try to push the group as any one person (especially one who holds no explicit authority) can do. Seeing the group pull together for this ordeal is heartening though. Taiko is in strong hands... I look forward to great things.

Send me pictures.

Short

Grandma don't bake no cookies... but her tea is definitely the best.

^___^

Settling down

definitely had the whole settling down talk with the father...

sigh... now I feel old.

Although I can't say I agree with his life plans for me. I won't elaborate any more than that, I gotta get back to transforming my room into a storage shed.

I've got a closet literally full of books. It actually makes me kind of happy. Its always been my dream to have a library... and while I can't say its much of one... its slowly turning into one. I think I might actually have around 200 or so books.

I'm such a book whore.

Pandora

Instead of studying... which I really should be doing... I've cooked, watched anime, and found something exciting...

www.pandora.com

It won't cover enough of the music I listen to regularly, but I'm slowly starting to grow out of otaku music.

What did I write while I was asleep?

ha ha... oh well back to work.

L.B. who are you?

Its funny. I wrote about how I encode my secrets in poetry... apparently I lost the key for the last time I had the courage to post up a piece of past that I don't want other people to know about.

Oh well... that's what dreams are for... they make you remember crap a certain way... and then you forget it ever happened.

4:46AM

Couldn't get back to sleep... but I found the key... ha ha... its one of those friendships that are probably meant to last a long time, but you don't know why... especially considering how much we've fought in the past.

What is Friendship?

I was having one bizarre dream just now where I started to meet up with old friends again. It started off with a long journey home. I started off by myself on foot. Spent the night at a fictitious relative's place where I played with their fictitious children. Caught an airplane to some unknown destination, but while I was at it, I became a part of Hillary Clinton's campaign and they asked me to write a speech for her. Yeah, that part was retarded, I don't know where it came from especially since I back Obama.

Then I started running into old friends. I often times think back on how I've related to people in the past and more often than not I'm very grateful for the experience. Every once in awhile it makes me incredibly lonely since I miss you guys... even the ones I see every day... right now. While in this dream though I ran into you and in our lighthearted banter the dream itself became distorted and I woke up with an empty feeling that drove me back to my journal (here). I thought I might be able to write a poem as I often encode my secrets, especially while half awake, in poetry but its just not coming to me right now. I wonder why...

I thought we had a great thing going for the longest time, but a few things happened that made me much less comfortable around you afterwards. I'll enumerate these experiences moreso as a warning to my future self than the few who read my infrequent and awkward posts and to an even lesser extent, you... we don't talk anymore anyways so we're out of touch.

1.
The first time I realized that you exist was way back when you started dating a close friend of mine. If I remember right, it started off with the whole "wow, she's cute... wish I had gotten to know her first." but as your feelings grew for each other I backed away. Fast forward a few years when our friendship sparks up again from virtually nothing, and in doing so I really wonder what you think of me behind this mask of friendship. Do I have a chance with you? But I buried my feelings for our friendship. Honestly though, everytime our conversation stopped and you caught me just staring at you at a loss for words... it wasn't because I had anything to say, I was just admiring how beautiful you are. But I was happy with our random dates and conversations.

2.
Fast forward a few more years. You're leaving the country. Its funny how the tables have turned at this point because now I'm leaving the country... but back to the topic.

I'm sorry.

When you were having your doubts about leaving, I pushed my dreams and aspirations for traveling abroad upon you. When you felt held back by your ties at home, I pushed you forward to accomplish those fleeting dreams and aspirations I was so certain that you had... after all, you went and applied for this thing on your own.

I really shouldn't have told you to go.

In the end, separation anxiety took over all rational thought and I regretted not ever having done those retarded lovey dovey things with you.

I really shouldn't have told you I liked you either...

because I'm sure it made your departure that much more awkward. I'm sorry for being so weak, really I am... because everything since then has been unbearable with you.

3.
I hated how infrequently we spoke while you were abroad. Something that really made you special was that we actually conversed via phone. Honestly, that kind of relationship is pretty special to me as I do it with so few people. Its been so long since I've had a good phone conversation with anyone. Maybe that's why I dreamt of you. More than that though, it made me realize how little you thought of me. Over the years of dialogue that we shared, one of the recurring themes was about how we shed all our old friends for new ones. I was always a little shocked by how easily you could put your past behind you, but perhaps its better that you can. Having friends that have gone through bad breakups and spent years getting through it... why do I encounter so many of these stories...? The longer you stayed away, the less we spoke. I really wish we had; although I'm sure you wanted to pretend that night never happened the lack of any substantial dialogue marginalized what we had left, as though I was hanging on by a thread from becoming a part of your oblivious past.

When you finally came home, you had changed. I thought it was because you were still getting used to being home, but I couldn't shake the feeling that you just didn't care about me anymore so I let go of that thread. I see opportunities to say hi to you from time to time... and while I want to, I refrain because I'm fairly certain I fabricated all the nuanced elements of our experiences together. Its those nuances that make me remember and cherish the fact that those experiences even happened.

It just makes me even lonelier knowing that you've forgotten about me,

but you see... I'm used to this thing called loneliness...

really i am...