It's taken a long time for me to get my thoughts together on what I wanted to say to close out this chapter of this blog. Here I am, nearly at the end of summer break, going to start my senior year back at Morningside in about two and a half weeks. I've been in the States for just over two months now, far less than the time I spent abroad, though it feels like it's been so much longer. A wild thought is the fact that it's already been a year (plus one week, to be precise) since my passport was printed.
It's... taken awhile to get used to being back, to say the least.
There's so much less to do in my hometown, for starters. I've taken up cooking a lot more even than I ever have before, as a way to keep myself busy for a couple hours every day. What's more, I've noticed that more and more of the dishes I make are Japanese cooking. I make yakisoba on a weekly basis, and since finding a good recipe for Japanese curry rice, I've been making that pretty often too. (Omurice is still on the need-to-make list, as is okonomiyaki.) I've made milk bread a few times. I've made dorayaki, onigiri, karaage, and egg salad sandwiches. I've found myself drinking a lot of cold unsweetened green tea (my sis, who's awesome at making tea, keeps me in constant supply). Once, I've splurged on getting some Calpico shipped in from an online Asian grocer based on the East Coast, but it's a little too expensive to justify doing too regularly. The few times I've been to Sioux City this summer, I've grabbed a bubble milk tea at Fuji Sushi at the mall. I miss the food in Japan (especially affordable sushi), but I've done my best to find ways to replicate (or at least approximate) Japanese cooking back here in Iowa.
(It requires a lot of turning to Amazon [boo] to find ingredients that nowhere in Iowa carries, even the Asian grocers in Storm Lake, but it's worth the inherent guilt involved.)
Besides cooking, I've been spending my summer writing (big surprise, I'm sure), learning new music for the piano, and playing Minecraft with friends/siblings. I've also been walking a lot, although not quite as much as I usually walked in a day while I was abroad. There's fewer places available to walk to, so it's changed into just wandering around the neighborhood and listening to music until I hit my daily step count, or walking to the grocery store to buy fresh produce to fix for dinner. (I've definitely spent more of my own money on groceries for the whole fam this summer than ever before.)
I've gotten my two youngest sibs (12 and 9) obsessed with Doraemon along with me. We watch the Disney XD dub of the show on YouTube, and 9-year-old brother takes the Doraemon plushie I got for him as a souvenir on 'gadget adventures' from his imagination on a daily basis. He's started actually reading this summer, mainly thanks to his reading my English Japanese Doraemon manga volumes over and over and over again. (The main reason I made dorayaki was for my little Doraemon fanatics, though I've discovered they both prefer Nutella filling to anko). Besides Doraemon, I've also developed an obsession with the My Hero Academia manga (I'm on volume 17; waiting for my brother to finish it so I can continue). (All Might is by far the best character, and Midoriya is definitely second. I refuse to allow my opinion to be altered on this front. Additionally, please let Mineta die.) The ironic thing is I've watched more anime/consumed more manga since getting back to the States than I did the whole time I was abroad (having Crunchyroll/VRV blocked will do that to a person, and I'm not smart enough to figure out VPN).
Every day, I keep up with Duolingo, doing my best to avoid losing all the language skills I picked up while abroad. I'm also looking into investing in some Genki apps so I can continue learning the kanji and maintaining my vocab. I'm looking forward to returning to campus so I can actually practice with any Japanese foreign exchange students we have (in addition to trying to persuade other students to go to Kansai Gaidai, of course).
I've continued singing some of the praise songs I learned Japanese versions of in Japan, especially "Watashi no Nozomi wa" ("My Hope," the Japanese version of "In Christ Alone"). I think about my church family in Hirakata often, and my promise to return one day.
I still fully intend to return one day, as soon as possible.
I think that realization is finally setting in with my family. The littles have been especially clingy this summer (not that I mind), and not just because I'd been gone so long. I think everyone in my family/among my close friends knows that I'm going back. When, I'm not sure yet--maybe for grad school, maybe to get a job after college. But I'm definitely going back.
What's funny is seeing the reactions of people I know locally when they realize I'm actually planning on going back one day (gasp! Shocking, I know). Most people just assumed that I'd come back desperately homesick, all Japan'd out, and ready to settle down back home, the travel bug thoroughly worked out of me. Last week we traveled down to Missouri to visit some of me and my teenage brothers' childhood places and share them with the littles, and in the process, we visited my godmother.
"You must be so glad to be home," she said.
"I am," I agreed, "but I can't wait to go back long term."
My dad laughed. "She'd go back tomorrow if she had the chance." (He's not wrong.)
My godmother was dumbfounded, to say the least.
It's still weird getting used to life in the States overall. People are so much more talkative here, and so much less polite on average. The news cycle is exhausting and depressing; it feels like in American news (at least politically), there is no such thing as good news. It makes sense why the current administration is largely viewed as a joke abroad. I've noticed I still bow when thanking people (ask President Reynders; he can attest to this fact). Everything is so... wide. You can't get away from open spaces here (or cornfields, for that matter. I never fully realized until this summer how truly monotonous the Iowa landscape can be). Cars go so much faster here, which you wouldn't think would be something I'd have to readjust to, but it has been.
Don't get me wrong. I still love Iowa, even if I'm more aware of some of the things that I liked better abroad, now. It's still nice, in many ways, to be here again. I enjoy being able to cook daily (instead of never), for one thing. I love being with my family (especially the littles). I enjoy how much more accessible cheese is here (I have string cheese every day, if nothing else). Iowa definitely has its own pros and cons, just like Japan.
Wherever my family is will always be a home for me. That will never change. And nobody how far I go, I'll always find my way back to them on a semi-regular basis.
But Japan is also a home for me now, and that will also never change.
Call me a strange foreigner, a henna gaijin, if you must. But I'm going back, as soon as possible. There are still many more adventures left to experience and write about.
So is this blog dead? I wouldn't say so. It might end up being a chronicle of daily life one day, when I make it back. It might be about the adventures of a harried grad school student, or an elementary English teacher, or a housewife (definitely a long shot, but who knows at this point). It might just be about a tourist who goes back for a week or two every summer until a better opportunity comes along. It might lie dormant for a year, or for twelve. I don't know yet.
But I'm going back. 日本に帰って行きます。
It's just a matter of time.
