Topanga的部落格

Here I am again. Yahoo net cafe at Narita Int'l Airport. After almost a year.

It's amazing how time flies.

Dad and Sara stayed there when they went back to Taiwan last year too, but they went out for shopping the next morning. I didn't. I didn't know the route or the schedule, and I don't know Japanese. I didn't want to risk it, so I stayed at the hotel the whole time. Which turned out to be *really* boring.
I thought there would be some boutiques or shops where I could hang out at the hotel. But to my disappointment, there was only this small shop which I was done browsing after 10 minutes. Then I had nothing to do. I walked around, trying to find a place to eat-- I should have had dinner at the airport, but how would I know, my flight arrived at 4:30 pm! The restaurants at the hotel were all so expensive. I walked around, and then decided to go back to take a nap and come back to decide where to eat at 7:00. Then I fell asleep-- on the small single bed in the small single room-- and didn' wake up until midnight. Which was a good thing coz I saved a meal.
Then I woke up, did the translation for half an hour and went back to sleep.
The next morning, I stayed at the hotel room and watched my Joey eps (catching up on the eps I missed before).
And I got to the airport and checked in at 12:30. Then hung around for the next couple of hours.
I don't know if I liked this total "nothingness" or hated it. I didn't care for it, I guess. But at the same time I dared not stop to think, meditate, and look back on the past year. So maybe this nothingness was a good thing. I felt out of place. Maybe it was because of the place I'm "hung" around, not exactly home, but not in Berkeley either. Somehow I felt my life had become this out of place since last year. Still got that feeling, and don't know when I'll finally feel I belong somewhere. Oh well.

Almost 1600. Time to get to the boarding gate.

I thought about what people would ask me after spending a year in the US. I still don't know what to tell them. I should put on a happy face and say I enjoyed it there. After all, I have been in the supposedly "one of the best places to live in the world" and I'm a student in the second best university of the US. What else can you ask for? But like Nicole, one of my upper schoolmate said, I guess I was kind of "intellectually bored". Not that the program wasn't good. But somehow just felt I don't belong. Miss my life in the MA program in Taiwan so much. The two years were probably the happiest time of my life. I knew what I liked, and I felt sure about myself. Right now? Not so much. I guess I'm losing my edge and losing my perspective. Hope the summer institute will help me find my perspective again.