Time Slows and Speeds

I had a semi-panic attack the other day.

I was at the video store, looking to rent Purple Rain (I had left my copy at a friend's house who was out of town). I was looking for it, and couldn't. Then I realized that even if I could find it, I wouldn't be able to keep it for the full seven days until it was due.

Because I was leaving.

I wouldn't BE there in seven days. And I wouldn't just be in another town nearby, I was going to be in an entirely different country. Prince's masterpiece would be there, sitting in my room or my car, not moving at all. No one would know it was there. Plus, after ten months, the late fees would be RIDICULOUS. I started to sweat a little bit, and my pulse became rapid, and I had to leave the store, Purple Rain-less.

In case this blog gets found by someone who doesn't know me, I am going to be leaving in a few days to attend the Inter-University Center for the Study of Japanese (IUC Yokohama), an intensive Japanese langauge course administered by Stanford, located in Yokohama, Japan. The IUC is a ten month program. It is actually still pretty much a mystery as to what kind of program it will be, but I am excited nevertheless.

The program itself is not what makes me nervous. Nothing really makes me too nervous. I guess the fact that I am no longer an undergraduate, and I technically have a degree (although I haven't gotten it yet), and I am supposed to be more of an adult now. I've lived abroad before; a year in Japan and a semester in Austria, but this is much more independent. The IUC has no dorms, and they seem to want to make sure that their students are strong-minded and able to figure out where they are to live, etc., on their own, which is really great. I'm just not used to it.

The preparations that I've made are few (as I write this I am sitting in my parents' basement, where I moved back into for the month of August, and there are still boxes all over from my apartment), but mentally I am very prepared to go. The rest will follow. I find that packing for a year is much easier than packing for, say, a two week vacation. Anything I forgot, I can have sent or can buy new, which helps the stress.

Up until recently, I was just sort of waiting around, waiting for the pressure to come and force me to do all the things that I need to do before I go. Well, the pressure is here now.

I'd better be getting back to packing. Apparently, if you roll your clothes, more will fit into the suitcases. Tricky, tricky.