Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to ...
Jun. 5th, 2007 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katekatI don't think this trip is really about *work* but ... quasi work. It's not about playing, that's for sure, although I'm also quite positive that there will be quite a bit of playing involved. But I'm there to study, to learn more than I know about Japanese, to find resources, and to ... BE THERE.
It's completely unreal, though. My brain doesn't know how to process the feeling of two months elsewhere. Especially this kind of elsewhere. My mom says I won't really believe it until I'm off the plane. I tend to agree.
But I'm packed, zippered, dressed, and confirmed. And I find I'm going to need more icons of Tokyo related things. These are the minute details that my brain concentrates on instead of the larger ones, like that I'm not going to see my boy in person for ... 8 weeks. But then again, at least we have skypes.
Traveling always changes you, and I wonder how I'll be changing this time? Older than most of the students there (probably older than some of the IES staff who are going to be looking back on us). Not really a conventional summer school student. But since that's what I am, I know I'll occupy a weird space of not-quite-being what I am.
It'll be an outrageous test of my listening skills to, to hear what doesn't get said in another language. Even though there are these mythologies about Japan that people debunk on a daily basis, there are differences between our two cultures, major ones, and the sublty factor is one of them that I alternatively feel confident and afraid of. Most of the time I like to think I'm fairly perceptive, but I know that I've got my own bull in a china shop tendencies. Here's to keeping those all in check.
And, in case anybody's curious, here are the two places they tell us we're going on our field trips... SO cool:
It's completely unreal, though. My brain doesn't know how to process the feeling of two months elsewhere. Especially this kind of elsewhere. My mom says I won't really believe it until I'm off the plane. I tend to agree.
But I'm packed, zippered, dressed, and confirmed. And I find I'm going to need more icons of Tokyo related things. These are the minute details that my brain concentrates on instead of the larger ones, like that I'm not going to see my boy in person for ... 8 weeks. But then again, at least we have skypes.
Traveling always changes you, and I wonder how I'll be changing this time? Older than most of the students there (probably older than some of the IES staff who are going to be looking back on us). Not really a conventional summer school student. But since that's what I am, I know I'll occupy a weird space of not-quite-being what I am.
It'll be an outrageous test of my listening skills to, to hear what doesn't get said in another language. Even though there are these mythologies about Japan that people debunk on a daily basis, there are differences between our two cultures, major ones, and the sublty factor is one of them that I alternatively feel confident and afraid of. Most of the time I like to think I'm fairly perceptive, but I know that I've got my own bull in a china shop tendencies. Here's to keeping those all in check.
And, in case anybody's curious, here are the two places they tell us we're going on our field trips... SO cool:
no subject
Date: 2007-06-05 09:48 pm (UTC)