793 : Reflection
I should really, really, really be working on writing my reports right now. But I feel a really strong compulsion to write. I still haven't caught up on my travel blog, which is ridiculous, seeing as how I'm leaving next Tuesday to return to the U.S. But in the travel blog, I don't reflect. It's factual. I might rant a little, sure, but it's not a place to store my thoughts-- just my actions.
When I first arrived, I wondered if coming to Japan was a mistake. On the one hand, I knew that if I didn't come, I'd regret it tremendously because there would always be that "What if?"
Well... I'm really glad I came. Not only did I really need this break from real life-- where I feel like I've been driving myself crazy with inactivity and familiarity, feeling like I wasn't going anywhere or doing anything-- but I've had some great experiences and met great people.
Starting with the simple things, and not necessarily the most pleasant... my homestay. While I am glad I did homestay instead of remaining at the seminar house, I was quite unhappy with my host family. My otousan creeped me out and would get extremely obnoxious. This morning, for instance, I was eating breakfast and trying to study for my final exam. He came over and started yapping at me, repeating the same thing a few times and then saying it again in some really stupid way as if I couldn't understand his effing Japanese. Then he was like, "Oh, are you studying? You're studying, huh?"
"Yeah. My final exam is today."
"Oh, studying, huh? Hahaha. A student's life is tough, isn't it?"
"Kind of. This test is in one and a half hours."
"Ah, that's tough. It's hard work, huh? Hahahaha. Study, study, study."
"Mmhmm."
"Even when you go back to the U.S., it'll be study, study, study."
*for the twentienth time* "Actually, I graduate when I go back. I'll be working."
"Oh, really? Oh, is that right? Well, work hard! Ganbatte, ganbatte!"
"Ganbarimasu."
"Ganbari-nasai!"
"Ganbarimasu."
"Studying, huh?"
"Mm."
"Looks like a lot of work. Let me look at that-- wow, that's a lot of words! A student's life is tough!"
*grits teeth* "Yes, and I'm trying to studying those words for my test soon."
"Really tough, huh. Ganbatte! Hahaha. Gotta study hard."
ARRRRRRRRRRGH. This kind of damn thing goes on all the effing time, and I'm so bloody sick of it!!
Okaasan is really nice, but she also practically NEVER smiles around me anymore, and hardly speaks. She always looks so unhappy and tired. I know part of it is because she hates Otousan, so she's miserable with him-- especially when he does stupid things like LOCK ME OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR TWO HOURS BECAUSE HE'S A MORON WHO FALLS ASLEEP INSTEAD. But part of it is just that I'm not the kind of host daughter she was hoping for. She wanted someone more active, I believe, and someone around more. Unfortunately, because I'm so damn uncomfortable with her, I'm out MORE. When I am at home, it's usually up in my room by myself.
So I'll be really happy to leave.
Onto classes.
For the most part, my classes are fine. I really loved my popular media and culture class, and even my Japanese class was fun. Psychology was fine. The problem was visual anthropology. God, that class made me miserable. Not only was it nowhere NEAR as interesting as I'd hoped it would be, but the readings were awful, and the grading-- I don't even know how the hell he was grading, but I couldn't figure out a way through it. He gave me an extra-credit option to try and maybe pull up my grade, if I do well enough on it. But this extra-credit option was a ten page research paper, when I had two presentations and three papers to work on instead. -_- So because of this stupid class where I'm getting a B, my 4.0 GPA for my Japanese major is going to fall. So I'm PISSED. I wish I'd never taken this class.
Leaving that topic now... travel.
I've gone to a lot of places here, so I'm happy. I have a couple of regrets-- I wish I could have spent more time in Harajuku, for example, and I'd have liked to go karaoke with Huey once-- but they're pretty trivial. For the most part, I liked the places I went, and I'm satisfied with my traveling here. I even got to go to two maid cafés and (briefly) see an EGL convention! And I've had tasty food~
The amount of money I spent still kind of floors me, especially when I think of how much of it wasn't even for me: not including food or clothes, most of the money I spent was on gifts for friends, family and coworkers. When my mom gets things for coworkers they're tiny trinkets. Huey got simple things, too-- cookies or chocolates or something. But I've been looking for something special for each coworker because I keep worrying that if I get only a few of them something nice, the others will be unhappy. -_-; So I stressed out a lot over what to get coworkers as souvenirs.
Finally... friends.
Before coming here, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make friends. After all, talking to strangers has most certainly never been my forté. Somehow, though, I made more friends than I ever expected to. Amy and Ashley are kind of a set pair because they're roommates, and they were my roommates when I was living at Seminar House 3 for orientation week. I run into Ashley on accident more often, but seem to talk with Amy more. O_o However that works out. I think it's mostly because Ashley and I will see each other when we're on our way to classes. Ashley's from the U.S., while Amy is from England. It might also be because Amy and I can geek together-- we both really, really like Naruto, so that's a shared hobby to start out with. ^_^; And she acts really wacky and flaily sometimes, so that makes me happy and comfortable.
Still, I don't talk with either of them with any regularity. Also in the Seminar House were Ann, Yui, Valerja, and Diana. (The other two were Lucia and Huey, both of whom were homestay so they didn't stay there, either.) I don't talk to any of them very often-- we've all become completely distant from Ann for a plethora of reasons, and Yui takes different classes in different buildings because she's a Japanese student, not a foreign exchange student. We meet up from time to time, although very infrequently; we're having one last dinner tomorrow together. I don't see or talk to Valerja or Diana much, although Lucia and I chat when we run into each other. But I'm not close to any of that group anyway.
Other friend-acquaintance exchange students that I talk to in school but don't particularly hang out with outside of school are Robbie and Alex. They're cool, but casual friends-- I don't really know what to say about them. ^_^;
The Japanese students I hang out from time to time are Hiroko, Nami, and Keiko. I've hung out with Ringo and RinRin a couple of times as well-- friends of Hiroko and Nami-- but Hiroko and Nami are the main ones I'd see. I eat lunch with Hiroko once a week; she's my speaking partner, so we chat about school, or languages, or families, or hobbies, or whatever. Just things that happen to come up. Sometimes it can be hard maintaining conversation, though, because she's extremely quiet so often she'll give a sort of curt, noncommittal response that kills conversation. ^_^; But she's very nice, too-- just quiet. Nami is much more outgoing, so conversation comes more readily, and is generally more active, with her; still, our schedules are horribly opposite from each other's, so we rarely meet up. Keiko is really, really adorable, and very different from the other Japanese people I know-- her sense of humour is very different. She comes off as extremely conservative and sweet and goody-goody, and she really is a very good person. But she falls asleep in classes instead of paying attention, and will casually, comfortably make jokes like, "I don't want to write this paper. So you'll write it for me, okay?" or "You're going back soon? That's so sad! No. You will stay at my house. You won't go back." So it's fun talking to her. ^_^
Still...
Topping the cake is definitely, definitely, definitely Huey.
I don't even entirely know how to explain our friendship. In large part, it's just that we... click. Understand. From the more general, obvious things-- like being amused that we have the same last name even though we're from different countries, or relating to an Asian upbringing-- to smaller, day-to-day things-- like endless chats on food-- it's like we never, ever run out of things to talk about. I feel a helluva lot lighter with her, and we laugh so much. We have really serious conversations as well, about school or family or friends, but we probably spend a good 40% of our conversations poking fun at each other and laughing our heads off. She will sometimes do or say something so random that I just have to stop and stare at her for a moment before dying with laughter. Her obsession with food is super cute, so I mock her for that tirelessly; likewise, when I'm looking at things to get Jen, she'll mock me as well. Mimicking my mother-- "Jen, Jen, Jen, it's always Jen! Why don't you think about ME?"-- until I smack her or chase her away. XD When I do smack her for saying or doing something lame or stupid, she always overexaggerates being in pain a little, which is oddly satisfying to see.
She's a strong support. When I need to rant about my host family, or if I'm having issues with someone, or am pissed about class-- whether it's serious or trivial-- she's the first person I want to contact. When we hang out all weekend long and I go back to my homestay, I start feeling lonely again and wonder what she's doing. (And in recent weeks, I'll then completely zone out until I'm on my way to school the next morning and have no idea what happened in the interim.) It's not that I'm clinging to her, and we're not co-dependent-- we're both quite independent people. (Well, most people say I'm independent. One or two people disagree.) It's just that we know we can be together, and still stand alone. We voice things we like or dislike, we pennypinch (she actually pennypinches even more than I do-- can you believe it? But I think it's in large part because I'm being much, much looser with money here than I ever am in the U.S.), we travel together and eat together. When I wanted to walk back to Gotenyama from Hirakata for half an hour to take the train from there instead so I wouldn't have to pay an extra $1.50 train fare, Huey's the one who's totally okay with walking with me. (That's not a problem anymore, thank god-- my current commute pass goes to Hirakata as well.) When something bothers me so I'll whine about it, and then whine about the same thing again two hours later, and two hours later, and the next day, it's okay-- she listens anyway. She'll sometimes bring bento for me, and I'll sometimes bring sweets for her. When I'm at the store looking for a snack, I'm more likely to buy something I know she'd like as well, so that we can share it, and if I don't like it, I can give it to her. (It's such a waste to throw it away otherwise!) She likes gifts, so I like how happy she gets when I occasionally get her a little something. It's like... she reacts just the right amount, I guess. Jokes aren't dragged on forever unless it's like a recurring gag or inside thing, serious moments don't kill our mood. Even if we disagree on something, we don't fight-- we have no reason to. We see very much eye-to-eye. She's a much better student than I am, but it's because she's such a damn hard worker. When it pisses me off when people say things like, "You have so much going for you! I'm so impressed!" she can completely understand why I don't like hearing such things. Along the same lines, she knows her strengths as well as her weaknesses. Being sniggered at for being the 'good student' (as echoes of teacher's pet! resound through my head...) or getting distracted by other things and having to panic to catch up on work-- she understands completely. Even when it's not about something problematic, we just seem to pick up on the same things. For example, we could be walking through a station and of the zillions of people moving past us, we'll notice the exact same thing about the exact same one. It's uncanny how many times that's happened-- Jen's the only other person I've had that kind of mind-reading with.
So being with her is on a lighter level, just plain good pure fun. On a deeper level we connect extremely well.
I think another large part of it, though, is that I don't feel stupid or useless around her. This is a thought that's been on my mind a lot these days. She's smarter and prettier, but that's okay-- I don't ever feel like I'm a MORON just because I'm not as good. I'm good enough for her, and that's okay. We can discuss anything just fine even if I'm not the over-straight-A student that she is-- it doesn't seem to matter. When she knows random trivia about one thing, I know random trivia about something else, so we share. We share our photos, we share our food, we occasionally share clothes (I lent her a skirt for a while because she was frustrated at her lack thereof). We have similar broad hobbies so we head toward the same sorts of things, but then the details differ. Like-- we both like cake, but I like strawberry or chocolate while she likes vanilla. In anything else, I prefer fruitier flavours and she prefers chocolate. O_o She likes cutesy EGL type things while I like punkier things, and we both like the elegant stuff. (In cases where we both share something in common, we often end up with doubles-- like taking photos of the same things, or how we have the same barrettes and earrings.) We like manga but generally read different genres, and yet, we can still find the same things funny or cute or whatever about those we share. We both have things that make us roll our eyes at the other-- we both pick on each other for different things. It's like... equality without competition. She doesn't draw or write as a hobby, so I don't feel creatively inept. She's smart, but such a hard-worker to get the perfect grades, and I can see her struggle, so it just makes me proud of her instead of feeling like something's wrong with me.
Somehow, I don't feel like a broken, inept human being around her. I don't even feel particularly snarky or sarcastic or cynical, just practical. I'm okay teasing her and calling her a narcisst because I know she won't take it personally. She knows when I'm joking and when I'm not, and she seems to pick up my subtext quite well.
The one thing that worries me is clinging. One of my greatest paranoias about friendships is that the more time someone spends with me, the more they'll see my countless flaws to the point that they're tired of me, or think I'm just a rotten, selfish, contradictory thing. Even so, when I get along with someone, I like to spend a lot of time with them. That happened with Courtney in middle school-- when we were best friends, we were together CONSTANTLY. And then one day, she cut off our friendship. Maybe that event traumatized me or something, but I always wonder if the same kind of thing will happen again in other friendships. With Jen, I feel stable and secure, but also worry-- when I do or say things bitchy to her, she just puts up with it, and that worries me. So when I spend a lot of time with Huey, I start to wonder, "Is she sick of me yet? Are we spending too much time together? Does she just feel like she has to take care of me, so she stays around when she'd rather be alone?" I know she hates when people cling, so I worry that maybe I'm clinging. With Jen, it's different-- because I know she likes to stay close to me even after all these years, so I don't worry as much about my obnoxiousness chasing her off. For a long time, she hasn't just been a friend-- she's a friend, she's family. She's like a housewife when she wants to take care of me, or like a little sister when she does silly random goofy things, or a friend when we're just running around taking photos or relaxing at home roleplaying or watching a movie. So that relationship is really hard to define. Huey's definitely in the category of friends, but she's definitely one one of the people I've felt closest to as well. I guess... how do I put it? Jen resonates perfectly with Chase, and she can understand Draco at least to some extent. Huey resonates perfectly with Aislinn, and she can have fun goofing around with Chase.
I know that when I go back to the U.S., I'll be fine. I don't get homesick even though I have people I love and want to see in the U.S., so it'll probably be the same the other way around-- it won't kill me to not have Huey around, even though I'll miss her and without a doubt have a LOT of "If only Huey was here!" moments. But it'll definitely be something different. This is going to sound really, really cheesy, but she's kind of like a sun. Okaasan calls her very "akarui" (bright-- as in cheery or sunny, not clever, even though she's that as well), and she's right. Her excited grin is infectious, and it seems next to impossible to maintain a bad mood around her. Even though I've seen her serious expressions, her frustrated expressions, her aggravated expressions, her worried expressions, her unhappy expressions, the icon in my head of her is always that big grin (the context around that expression in this mental icon is usually good food, by the way, or having said something silly in Japanese) as she tilts her head, wearing her black beret. That mental image always makes me feel a little lighter and happier. Which is really dorky, and makes me sound stupid, but whatever. XD;
Okay, that's all. ^_^
When I first arrived, I wondered if coming to Japan was a mistake. On the one hand, I knew that if I didn't come, I'd regret it tremendously because there would always be that "What if?"
Well... I'm really glad I came. Not only did I really need this break from real life-- where I feel like I've been driving myself crazy with inactivity and familiarity, feeling like I wasn't going anywhere or doing anything-- but I've had some great experiences and met great people.
Starting with the simple things, and not necessarily the most pleasant... my homestay. While I am glad I did homestay instead of remaining at the seminar house, I was quite unhappy with my host family. My otousan creeped me out and would get extremely obnoxious. This morning, for instance, I was eating breakfast and trying to study for my final exam. He came over and started yapping at me, repeating the same thing a few times and then saying it again in some really stupid way as if I couldn't understand his effing Japanese. Then he was like, "Oh, are you studying? You're studying, huh?"
"Yeah. My final exam is today."
"Oh, studying, huh? Hahaha. A student's life is tough, isn't it?"
"Kind of. This test is in one and a half hours."
"Ah, that's tough. It's hard work, huh? Hahahaha. Study, study, study."
"Mmhmm."
"Even when you go back to the U.S., it'll be study, study, study."
*for the twentienth time* "Actually, I graduate when I go back. I'll be working."
"Oh, really? Oh, is that right? Well, work hard! Ganbatte, ganbatte!"
"Ganbarimasu."
"Ganbari-nasai!"
"Ganbarimasu."
"Studying, huh?"
"Mm."
"Looks like a lot of work. Let me look at that-- wow, that's a lot of words! A student's life is tough!"
*grits teeth* "Yes, and I'm trying to studying those words for my test soon."
"Really tough, huh. Ganbatte! Hahaha. Gotta study hard."
ARRRRRRRRRRGH. This kind of damn thing goes on all the effing time, and I'm so bloody sick of it!!
Okaasan is really nice, but she also practically NEVER smiles around me anymore, and hardly speaks. She always looks so unhappy and tired. I know part of it is because she hates Otousan, so she's miserable with him-- especially when he does stupid things like LOCK ME OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR TWO HOURS BECAUSE HE'S A MORON WHO FALLS ASLEEP INSTEAD. But part of it is just that I'm not the kind of host daughter she was hoping for. She wanted someone more active, I believe, and someone around more. Unfortunately, because I'm so damn uncomfortable with her, I'm out MORE. When I am at home, it's usually up in my room by myself.
So I'll be really happy to leave.
Onto classes.
For the most part, my classes are fine. I really loved my popular media and culture class, and even my Japanese class was fun. Psychology was fine. The problem was visual anthropology. God, that class made me miserable. Not only was it nowhere NEAR as interesting as I'd hoped it would be, but the readings were awful, and the grading-- I don't even know how the hell he was grading, but I couldn't figure out a way through it. He gave me an extra-credit option to try and maybe pull up my grade, if I do well enough on it. But this extra-credit option was a ten page research paper, when I had two presentations and three papers to work on instead. -_- So because of this stupid class where I'm getting a B, my 4.0 GPA for my Japanese major is going to fall. So I'm PISSED. I wish I'd never taken this class.
Leaving that topic now... travel.
I've gone to a lot of places here, so I'm happy. I have a couple of regrets-- I wish I could have spent more time in Harajuku, for example, and I'd have liked to go karaoke with Huey once-- but they're pretty trivial. For the most part, I liked the places I went, and I'm satisfied with my traveling here. I even got to go to two maid cafés and (briefly) see an EGL convention! And I've had tasty food~
The amount of money I spent still kind of floors me, especially when I think of how much of it wasn't even for me: not including food or clothes, most of the money I spent was on gifts for friends, family and coworkers. When my mom gets things for coworkers they're tiny trinkets. Huey got simple things, too-- cookies or chocolates or something. But I've been looking for something special for each coworker because I keep worrying that if I get only a few of them something nice, the others will be unhappy. -_-; So I stressed out a lot over what to get coworkers as souvenirs.
Finally... friends.
Before coming here, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make friends. After all, talking to strangers has most certainly never been my forté. Somehow, though, I made more friends than I ever expected to. Amy and Ashley are kind of a set pair because they're roommates, and they were my roommates when I was living at Seminar House 3 for orientation week. I run into Ashley on accident more often, but seem to talk with Amy more. O_o However that works out. I think it's mostly because Ashley and I will see each other when we're on our way to classes. Ashley's from the U.S., while Amy is from England. It might also be because Amy and I can geek together-- we both really, really like Naruto, so that's a shared hobby to start out with. ^_^; And she acts really wacky and flaily sometimes, so that makes me happy and comfortable.
Still, I don't talk with either of them with any regularity. Also in the Seminar House were Ann, Yui, Valerja, and Diana. (The other two were Lucia and Huey, both of whom were homestay so they didn't stay there, either.) I don't talk to any of them very often-- we've all become completely distant from Ann for a plethora of reasons, and Yui takes different classes in different buildings because she's a Japanese student, not a foreign exchange student. We meet up from time to time, although very infrequently; we're having one last dinner tomorrow together. I don't see or talk to Valerja or Diana much, although Lucia and I chat when we run into each other. But I'm not close to any of that group anyway.
Other friend-acquaintance exchange students that I talk to in school but don't particularly hang out with outside of school are Robbie and Alex. They're cool, but casual friends-- I don't really know what to say about them. ^_^;
The Japanese students I hang out from time to time are Hiroko, Nami, and Keiko. I've hung out with Ringo and RinRin a couple of times as well-- friends of Hiroko and Nami-- but Hiroko and Nami are the main ones I'd see. I eat lunch with Hiroko once a week; she's my speaking partner, so we chat about school, or languages, or families, or hobbies, or whatever. Just things that happen to come up. Sometimes it can be hard maintaining conversation, though, because she's extremely quiet so often she'll give a sort of curt, noncommittal response that kills conversation. ^_^; But she's very nice, too-- just quiet. Nami is much more outgoing, so conversation comes more readily, and is generally more active, with her; still, our schedules are horribly opposite from each other's, so we rarely meet up. Keiko is really, really adorable, and very different from the other Japanese people I know-- her sense of humour is very different. She comes off as extremely conservative and sweet and goody-goody, and she really is a very good person. But she falls asleep in classes instead of paying attention, and will casually, comfortably make jokes like, "I don't want to write this paper. So you'll write it for me, okay?" or "You're going back soon? That's so sad! No. You will stay at my house. You won't go back." So it's fun talking to her. ^_^
Still...
Topping the cake is definitely, definitely, definitely Huey.
I don't even entirely know how to explain our friendship. In large part, it's just that we... click. Understand. From the more general, obvious things-- like being amused that we have the same last name even though we're from different countries, or relating to an Asian upbringing-- to smaller, day-to-day things-- like endless chats on food-- it's like we never, ever run out of things to talk about. I feel a helluva lot lighter with her, and we laugh so much. We have really serious conversations as well, about school or family or friends, but we probably spend a good 40% of our conversations poking fun at each other and laughing our heads off. She will sometimes do or say something so random that I just have to stop and stare at her for a moment before dying with laughter. Her obsession with food is super cute, so I mock her for that tirelessly; likewise, when I'm looking at things to get Jen, she'll mock me as well. Mimicking my mother-- "Jen, Jen, Jen, it's always Jen! Why don't you think about ME?"-- until I smack her or chase her away. XD When I do smack her for saying or doing something lame or stupid, she always overexaggerates being in pain a little, which is oddly satisfying to see.
She's a strong support. When I need to rant about my host family, or if I'm having issues with someone, or am pissed about class-- whether it's serious or trivial-- she's the first person I want to contact. When we hang out all weekend long and I go back to my homestay, I start feeling lonely again and wonder what she's doing. (And in recent weeks, I'll then completely zone out until I'm on my way to school the next morning and have no idea what happened in the interim.) It's not that I'm clinging to her, and we're not co-dependent-- we're both quite independent people. (Well, most people say I'm independent. One or two people disagree.) It's just that we know we can be together, and still stand alone. We voice things we like or dislike, we pennypinch (she actually pennypinches even more than I do-- can you believe it? But I think it's in large part because I'm being much, much looser with money here than I ever am in the U.S.), we travel together and eat together. When I wanted to walk back to Gotenyama from Hirakata for half an hour to take the train from there instead so I wouldn't have to pay an extra $1.50 train fare, Huey's the one who's totally okay with walking with me. (That's not a problem anymore, thank god-- my current commute pass goes to Hirakata as well.) When something bothers me so I'll whine about it, and then whine about the same thing again two hours later, and two hours later, and the next day, it's okay-- she listens anyway. She'll sometimes bring bento for me, and I'll sometimes bring sweets for her. When I'm at the store looking for a snack, I'm more likely to buy something I know she'd like as well, so that we can share it, and if I don't like it, I can give it to her. (It's such a waste to throw it away otherwise!) She likes gifts, so I like how happy she gets when I occasionally get her a little something. It's like... she reacts just the right amount, I guess. Jokes aren't dragged on forever unless it's like a recurring gag or inside thing, serious moments don't kill our mood. Even if we disagree on something, we don't fight-- we have no reason to. We see very much eye-to-eye. She's a much better student than I am, but it's because she's such a damn hard worker. When it pisses me off when people say things like, "You have so much going for you! I'm so impressed!" she can completely understand why I don't like hearing such things. Along the same lines, she knows her strengths as well as her weaknesses. Being sniggered at for being the 'good student' (as echoes of teacher's pet! resound through my head...) or getting distracted by other things and having to panic to catch up on work-- she understands completely. Even when it's not about something problematic, we just seem to pick up on the same things. For example, we could be walking through a station and of the zillions of people moving past us, we'll notice the exact same thing about the exact same one. It's uncanny how many times that's happened-- Jen's the only other person I've had that kind of mind-reading with.
So being with her is on a lighter level, just plain good pure fun. On a deeper level we connect extremely well.
I think another large part of it, though, is that I don't feel stupid or useless around her. This is a thought that's been on my mind a lot these days. She's smarter and prettier, but that's okay-- I don't ever feel like I'm a MORON just because I'm not as good. I'm good enough for her, and that's okay. We can discuss anything just fine even if I'm not the over-straight-A student that she is-- it doesn't seem to matter. When she knows random trivia about one thing, I know random trivia about something else, so we share. We share our photos, we share our food, we occasionally share clothes (I lent her a skirt for a while because she was frustrated at her lack thereof). We have similar broad hobbies so we head toward the same sorts of things, but then the details differ. Like-- we both like cake, but I like strawberry or chocolate while she likes vanilla. In anything else, I prefer fruitier flavours and she prefers chocolate. O_o She likes cutesy EGL type things while I like punkier things, and we both like the elegant stuff. (In cases where we both share something in common, we often end up with doubles-- like taking photos of the same things, or how we have the same barrettes and earrings.) We like manga but generally read different genres, and yet, we can still find the same things funny or cute or whatever about those we share. We both have things that make us roll our eyes at the other-- we both pick on each other for different things. It's like... equality without competition. She doesn't draw or write as a hobby, so I don't feel creatively inept. She's smart, but such a hard-worker to get the perfect grades, and I can see her struggle, so it just makes me proud of her instead of feeling like something's wrong with me.
Somehow, I don't feel like a broken, inept human being around her. I don't even feel particularly snarky or sarcastic or cynical, just practical. I'm okay teasing her and calling her a narcisst because I know she won't take it personally. She knows when I'm joking and when I'm not, and she seems to pick up my subtext quite well.
The one thing that worries me is clinging. One of my greatest paranoias about friendships is that the more time someone spends with me, the more they'll see my countless flaws to the point that they're tired of me, or think I'm just a rotten, selfish, contradictory thing. Even so, when I get along with someone, I like to spend a lot of time with them. That happened with Courtney in middle school-- when we were best friends, we were together CONSTANTLY. And then one day, she cut off our friendship. Maybe that event traumatized me or something, but I always wonder if the same kind of thing will happen again in other friendships. With Jen, I feel stable and secure, but also worry-- when I do or say things bitchy to her, she just puts up with it, and that worries me. So when I spend a lot of time with Huey, I start to wonder, "Is she sick of me yet? Are we spending too much time together? Does she just feel like she has to take care of me, so she stays around when she'd rather be alone?" I know she hates when people cling, so I worry that maybe I'm clinging. With Jen, it's different-- because I know she likes to stay close to me even after all these years, so I don't worry as much about my obnoxiousness chasing her off. For a long time, she hasn't just been a friend-- she's a friend, she's family. She's like a housewife when she wants to take care of me, or like a little sister when she does silly random goofy things, or a friend when we're just running around taking photos or relaxing at home roleplaying or watching a movie. So that relationship is really hard to define. Huey's definitely in the category of friends, but she's definitely one one of the people I've felt closest to as well. I guess... how do I put it? Jen resonates perfectly with Chase, and she can understand Draco at least to some extent. Huey resonates perfectly with Aislinn, and she can have fun goofing around with Chase.
I know that when I go back to the U.S., I'll be fine. I don't get homesick even though I have people I love and want to see in the U.S., so it'll probably be the same the other way around-- it won't kill me to not have Huey around, even though I'll miss her and without a doubt have a LOT of "If only Huey was here!" moments. But it'll definitely be something different. This is going to sound really, really cheesy, but she's kind of like a sun. Okaasan calls her very "akarui" (bright-- as in cheery or sunny, not clever, even though she's that as well), and she's right. Her excited grin is infectious, and it seems next to impossible to maintain a bad mood around her. Even though I've seen her serious expressions, her frustrated expressions, her aggravated expressions, her worried expressions, her unhappy expressions, the icon in my head of her is always that big grin (the context around that expression in this mental icon is usually good food, by the way, or having said something silly in Japanese) as she tilts her head, wearing her black beret. That mental image always makes me feel a little lighter and happier. Which is really dorky, and makes me sound stupid, but whatever. XD;
Okay, that's all. ^_^