So about twenty-five hours into Japan, and I found myself standing on a karaoke room couch, microphone in hand, completely tearing Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" a new one, in front of a bunch of non-Asian kids also assigned to Osaka prefecture. The British girls who hadn't really been talking to me up to that point (but who had picked the song, and who later pressed 'skip' on "Walk On The Wild Side") were also singing along. It had been my first venture outside of the Tokyo hotel, since my plane group arrived really late the night before and had to attend a full day of lectures and workshops before getting a chance to re-lax. The whole thing was a blur and weird, surreal out-of-body sort of thing--like, what am I DOING? Here? Avril?

Soon we shipped out of the hotel and dispersed to our different city assignments & apartments. So now it's starting to sink in that no, I'm not going to forever be in a ridiculously fancy hotel and subject to an unending round of short self-intro conversations with a bunch of Americans, Brits, Aussies, Canadians, and New Zealanders (<3<3 Kilgour Bros [& Robert Scott!]<3)... no, I'm actually going to be by myself, on a tatami mat, downloading Google Earth (at the advice of my head supervisor) to figure out where the hell I am and how the hell I can travel from home to school/work.

Hum.

I've been having good chats with my very helpful co-worker-supervisor, though--turns out he hates Avril, too! (But I didn't tell him about my karaoke lapse.. it had just come up in conversation.)