Groggy late-night dreams of Tokyo

It is another late night. Another few hours of calm and stillness before the urgency of packing and finishing off last minute forgetten errands begins. My last night in Cardiff as Spring break and this small respite of home, parents and old neighbourhood friends falls away to bring that dear, hair-tearing, tear-jerking, St Andrews back.

Of course - it is the perfect time for a blog entry. As the heaviness of sleep gets behind my eyes and draws my lids downwards towards groggy snatched dreams.

From the uncertainty of a week ago - the lack of direction that May seemed to hold I finally have a path again. The exploding emptiness of graduation and goodbyes now seem to be a part of the slipping away of one era and into the next.

After a fitful few days of waiting on letters and interviews I now know atlast that the dream I had in October will be realised and come September I will be in Tokyo, Japan, battling to learn the language, embrace the culture and understand the people. The program last 19months and by the end of your time there apparently you are supposed to be pretty fluent in Japanese (atleast able to work in the language - though as I think I will realise all too soon - fluency in Japanese is a completely different concept from fluency in a European language). It is heart stoppingly exciting - and my head is floating through all those stereotypical images I have of Japan: cherry blossoms, sumo wrestlers, Zen buddhism, gheishas, cute, high pitched school girls, aikido, sushi, chopsticks. There are other images that come to mind too - the two months I spent in the Caucasus last summer and how vulnerable I felt not knowing the language or even to be able to read the alphabet. The etiquette sections of travel books that I've read and the importance of not excesively displaying emotions. The conversations I had with a japanese friend of mine last year about the difference in the treatment and expectations for women, and of the group mentality in Japan. All too soon those discussions will turn from vague heresey to something more substantiated and solid, but until then I content myself with ponderings.