the end is near

If I were to make a graph of my interest in and love of Japanese (language) over time I think it would be a sine curve. Or is it cosine that starts high? My interest in math was always pretty much a flat line. Anyway, since being here I've been disappointed to kind myself at a low point on the curve. And when my interest is low, my ability suffers too. But today, I feel my love and interest starting to rise again. One of my favorite things about Japanese has always been its rich and widely used onomatopoeia. Not only are there onomatopoeia for sounds (BATAN is a door closing) but for feelings (physical: a throbbing headache hurts like GANGAN and emotional: nervous excitement sounds like WAKUWAKU) and physical movements (a cute smile is like NIKONIKO, but an evil smile sounds like NIYARI). In an excerpt of a novel I was reading for a class, a girl stirs a put of jam. That repetitive circular motion is expressed with GURUGURU. On my walk home today I went a different way than usual - trying to stay in the shade and passed a bagel store(what a global age we live in)called Guruguru Bagels. On the awning were cute drawings of snails. So clever! Bagels are round and vaguely windy, a snail's shell is a spiral - also reminiscent of a repetitive circular motion, hence Guruguru Bagels. I love the idea that to a Japanese mind shapes have sounds. It's like a cultural synesthesia. When Japanese children watch the last of the bathwater run down the drain do they hear guruguru guruguru?

In other news, I have just a week left of exams, friends are starting to return to their home countries and I'm trying to finalize my plans for August. My time in Tokyo and Japan as a whole is almost over. I can't believe how fast time passes and I wish I had come to study here for a whole year. I can't imagine leaving. On the other hand, starting yesterday an overwhelming desire to go home is rising in me. Both of these are weird feelings. They feel fake, forced, like they were implanted by someone else. I feel neither genuinely sad at the thought of leaving, nor genuinely excited at the thought of going home. I think part of it is because at a time of transition like this I know I'm supposed to feel sad and/or excited and I'm having trouble distinguishing between the knowledge of what I'm supposed to feel and my actual emotions. Another part of it is just that I don't have enough imagination to visualize what leaving Japan and going back to Bryn Mawr will be like. It's hard to feel much of anything for an unknown of a future. This wouldn't bother me except that saying goodbye to people and places is more satisfying when you can cry and really feel the moment and going home is more fun when you CAN'T WAIT. I'm missing out on one of the crucial points of the Study Abroad Experience. Damn.