Big Dog on Campus

Howdy peeps. Thought I'd take some time out of my labor day to update you on my readjustment progress. Did I mention it's raining outside in Pittsburgh right now? Yeah, lovely labor day.

So I've been through two weeks of classes already and things are going okay. My literature courses are proving to be quite interesting. We've already started discussing Tess of the D'Urbervilles in Major Works of Modern Fiction. If you haven't read it before, allow me to sum up the moral of the story: bad things happen to good people. Oh, and don't fall asleep in a deserted forest with a rapist. Yeah, great book. I hope Lord Jim is a bit more upbeat.

The only class I'm really not enjoying is Calc 101. I've never liked math, but I'm not bad at it, it's just that I haven't taken a legit math course since high school. So I know I've learned all this stuff before in AP Calculus, but I totally don't remember. And of course, since it's a freshman class, all the little newbs are like, "This is so boring! Hurry up and get to the hard stuff!" whereas I'm praying the TA slows down so I can copy every single little detail into my notebook. So embarrassing. There is an excellent chance I'm the oldest person in that lecture. Why oh why didn't that Humanities Scholars course on philosophical mathematics count for my required course???

I also got my first taste of my new internship, but I won't post on that until I take some photos of my office and the hallways. Trust me, it's worth the wait.

On the reverse culture shock side of things, I've begun to notice some major changes that Japan has wrought in me. One of the negative changes would be that I'm super lazy now. I mean, by CMU standards. I'm so unused to having multiple assignments at a time and going to the same class more than once a week. In Japan I had lots of time to play games, watch movies and TV shows, write, etc. Now I find myself feeling ridiculously guilty for not having my nose buried in an assigned book or reading every waking moment. I haven't even begun to factor in my internship hours or my thesis research! It's going to be an uphill struggle readjusting to the work load, but I've never been afraid of hard work before, so I'm not really worried.

A more positive change I've noticed is my insatiable sweet tooth is gone. Seriously, I think my taste buds are having their own type of reentry shock! In Japan, I ate TONS of sweets and junk food, which is how I gained Xpounds over the course of the year (did you really think I'd tell you the number?). Now all I want every day is healthy food: yogurt, hummus, pita chips, fruit, etc. I even tried to go back to Ben&Jerry's, my ultimate guilty pleasure, and just couldn't do it. It was way too sweet! It's not like I ate healthy food all year long in Japan, so I'm really not sure why this is. But I like it. Makes eating healthy (and losing my Japan-fat) painless. Maybe my body just really really missed vitamins and is now compensating by giving me healthy cravings. For once, I'm just gonna sit back and let the cravings take over. Thank you, Japan.

I am also much more relaxed in general. I've always been a bit of a control freak- I have to know every detail of what's going on, I have to make all the plans and follow them to a T, and god forbid if I'm not at least fifteen minutes early for every single thing. Maybe I just used up all my anal-retentiveness in Japan, but I'm so much more chill now. It's easier for me to be flexible, to roll with the punches. I can be spontaneous, and if I'm two minutes late, it's not the end of the world (so long as it isn't important, like a class or interview). I guess Japan taught me that there is no way I can be in control of everything; in fact, I know I can't control the great majority of things in my life. But it obviously didn't kill me there, so there's nothing I can't handle here. I'll save the stress for when my computer inevitably breaks down sometime in November. It's become an annual event now.

And finally, what I'm really happy to have brought back from Japan with me is confidence. I wouldn't say I strut everywhere, but I certainly hold my head high and nothing and no one can intimidate me anymore. I'm a senior on campus, a big dog, and I just returned from a year in Tokyo. That makes me super cool. Yeah, I said it. I speak Japanese (casually), I will likely graduate with a 4.0 in my major, and there are iPhone apps with my name in the credits. I am so ballin'.

Of course, at CMU, I'm still only one of the many impressive students here. I have a loooong year ahead of me and a lot on my plate, so I'm still going to have to work my little bum off just like I've been doing since the fourth grade. But honestly, after Japan, I feel like there's nothing I can't handle. Even the insanely expensive price tag of grad school, the GRE, and an economy in recession. Bring it on.