England

Sorry for not posting anything recently - I haven't had anything particularly interesting to talk about, so I haven't talked, as it were.

I'm back in England for a month. It's been two weeks already and I've got another two to go. And I have to say, I miss Japan. I don't really see it as "coming home", as such, because I haven't really had a proper home in England since I went to university and my parents moved up to the Midlands. Hiroshima, now, feels like as much a home as Sheffield or Leamington ever did.

That, plus the fact that the friends I've made on the HUSA program are some of the best I've ever had, makes it harder to be away than I expected. Facebook doesn't help either, with its daily reminders of how much fun everyone's having without me. Sure, I might be bored, stuck in my cold room, but at least in Japan there'd be people to be bored with.

Now I'm wondering what it's going to be like when I leave for good in August. Since most of my friends in Japan are in fact American, Japanese or Korean, there's a good chance I'll never see a lot of them again - and that's a horrible thing to think about. Shame I've had a lot of time to think about it.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if it were a few months, but a year is such an awkward length of time. It's long, but it goes so quickly. It's enough to get to know people but too soon to leave them. And language wise, it's enough to improve, but not nearly enough for fluency, which is something I was misled into believing.

Don't get me wrong; I don't regret going, not in the slightest. So far, it's been the best time of my life. It's just that being back in England has made me realise how fast I have to leave the best time of my life, and go "back home" to carry on as if it had never been.