California and returning

My trip to California was all that I expected and even a little better than that.

I've been working on putting together the movie from what I filmed on my camera during my trip. It's fun to relive it a little. Not to mention it gives me something to do.

I had a lot of quality time with family members and a good chunk of fun times with friends (including running around the MPC in the earliest hours of the 31st with the RftW crew.)

I also got to witness an odd little drama unfold due to thrown silverware in a Denny's.

It's been a little hard to be back. Living here with California so fresh in my mind, I notice things that get under my skin more. Like differences in what is acceptable in Japan vs in the US (people are always talking about Americans accidentally being offensive to Japanese, but it works the other way, too), assumptions that I don't understand things, and overall the isolation that comes with those things. It's hard to adapt.

But I do overall enjoy my life here even if it's not perfect. I tell myself over and over that how my life is in California and how it is in Kagoshima are completely different and one can never be the same as the other.

It's comforting to think this way because it helps me accept Japanese life as a completely different thing- outside of the standards I set for US life. On the other hand, it makes me worry that I can never be completely content in either place. One will always be missing aspects of the other.

It's happened almost everyday that one minute I was perfectly happy, feeling as if I am inwardly light and free as a feather. Then someone would say or do something that would put me in a rotten mood. I can't remember if this was standard behavior here before my two weeks in California, but I think it was similar.

I guess I'm overall content in Japan, but I am also a lot more sensitive than I am back in the US (for good reason, I think.) So, I've been playing with the idea of renaming my blog "Real Life Confessions of Happy Bruise"- because I am a cheerful person that doesn't react well to getting "poked at."

I also think that title just might be way too long... :S