Rocks in my path? I keep them all. With them I shall build my castle.

This weekend has been a wide range of emotions.

Oh, god. A blog about emotions. Here, have a Hello Kitty cheese.

Friday was excitement, packing and moving, getting some christmas gifts sent off to a couple old coworkers and older friends, a run that felt like a challenge but a refreshing one, and an impromptu skype call from a friend I truly admire who told me she's in love and happy.

Saturday was moving day, which took some coordination and help from a moving company, but ended with a last-minute invitation to dinner with some friends at a delicious and quaint onigiri shop (where I also ran into a new friend I had met the week previously at a party, making the third time I've run into friends in places I'd never expect to. Tokyo sure feels small at times). All in all a relieving and productive day, and to top it off, by the end of the night I gained two free futons, two tables, and a coat rack from my kind Turkish delivery man. My room is finally on its way to feeling like a home, and not a hotel.


 
(Pictures stolen from the facebook page of the friend I saw at the onigiri shop.)

Sunday was exhausting, but ultimately fun and beautifully temperate. It began with toting shelves bought off of craigslist around the city, and returning a fitted sheet that I bought believing it was a sheet, and some lightbulbs I bought in the wrong size. Once home from errands it continued with a cross-continental table assembly (said free table from Saturday) with skype support, after my dad and his favorite DIY buddy figured out how to assemble the parts of my table based on pictures I had sent my dad. I ran off again as soon as that was finished to spend a brief but enjoyable hour at a friend's end of year party 45 minutes away. I hopped back on the train to Tokyo again and fighting back sleep, joined my new housemates for a two hour semi-monthly house meeting. About 5% of which I understood, so I guess that means I'm excused when I accidentally break all the rules... We ended the night with an oishii (delicious) sukiyaki dinner, and watching of the Japanese election results.

Nope.

What are those things?

Finished!  For Jeff and my dad.

Today loneliness hit. Rather briefly, but acutely.
I've been meeting a lot of friendly people here in Tokyo, but a large portion of them, being expats, are only here transiently. I've surfed the OkCupid waters, and have met a couple really intelligent, intriguing and fun men. A couple with whom I've had little attraction and a couple with whom plans never seem to work out. I'll take things as they come, but being an overly-analytical person, I can't help but try to figure them out, right away, and the little free time some seem to have leaves me impatient. In the sake of full disclosure, the fact that I've only had one real serious relationship in my life also leaves me impatient. This feels like a silly concern to have at 25 years young, but it feels stronger when I think of the likelihood that many of the great people I'll meet here are only here temporarily (yet so am I); and for now, in this country, I have no deep or strong relationships. I have no one to run to, to truly open up to, who Knows me.
My dear friends and family at home who keep in contact with me and show me they care are indispensable, and they are why I've not felt loneliness for the two and a half months I've had here.

I am not unhappy here. This weekend might have been some of my most happy, secure moments of my time here. I consider myself extremely lucky, to have the opportunity to brave this adventure, and the mental fortitude to do so on my own, and to take full advantage of it. I have purposefully immersed myself in a sharehouse with all Japanese housemates, and I hope to learn from them, and eventually lessen the language barrier to the point that we can have meaningful conversation.  For now we will google translate and talk about simple things, and I will stare blankly at times when they laugh in conversation among themselves, but then they open a bottle of wine they made in September and share it with me, and I introduce them to dubstep and The XX (the latter of which I was happy to see they enjoyed).  Each word of context that I pick up on further solidifies my basic understandings, and I'm always progressing.  At a snails pace sometimes, but consistently.

Today I spend my first night at my new apartment, and tomorrow morning I register with the city as a resident.