Last Goodbye

Am staying at my friends' Kevin and Beth's place back in Ami until I leave on Monday. Last night we had a big going home karaoke blowout with my friends here, today we had a smaller less blownout karaoke party with the older Japanese ladies I and my friend Katie used to have Japanese and English exchange with over dinner on Wednesday nights. They made me sing Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" for the last song, which they heard me sing some months ago and insisted that when I sing it, I should look at each of them longingly. I will miss those flirts something fierce.

Then tonight me and Beth and Kevin and Jody went to see V for Vendetta, which Alan and Kristin have reported seeing as well, and like them we freaking loved it. Go see it. Hopefully take something important to remember away after watching it.

I won't be writing in this journal again until I am back home in the states, so this is my last entry from my time in Japan. It's been the absolute best time in my life, living here. I feel like I found so many important parts of myself while I lived in Japan and that I probably wouldn't have if I'd never left America and everything I knew there behind for a good, long time. I'm a pretty luck guy, I think. Whenever my students at the junior high asked if I was rooting for American teams and athletes during the Olympics, I would tell them I was rooting for both Americans and Japanese. They'd invariably be surprised and ask why, and I'd always tell them "Because I'm from both of those countries now." And that's something that will never change, I think. Part of me will always belong to Japan, even when I'm not living here anymore.

Now on to New York and Pittsburgh airports, and back to Kinsman, Ohio and my family. It'll be good to see my family and friends back home soon. The people a part of me always belonged to while I wasn't home.

Sayonara Japan, Hello America