Before I left, I had to prepare many things in order to leave without too many problems. I mean, I've been in Japan for one year and three months. There's gonna be a few glitches here and there.

The first task was my luggage. I had to pack over a year' worth of things into two suitcases. Wasn't gonna happen! So I had to send home about eight boxes by boat. Finding the boxes, bringing them back to my dorm, packing everything, getting the right papers, filling them in, calling in someone to pick up the parcels or bringing them to the post office were all tasks that had to be performed to complete this. Yet as if that wasn't enough, many problems happened. My boxes were returned to the post office about three times after being sent out. Why? Because in Japan, they think too much. Haha, no, well more likely because they don't understand the mailing system in Canada, and they didn't believe that the address I wrote down would be sufficient for the boxes to reach my house. A very interesting experience. But the third time the boxes came back, I heard from my friends Yusef and Haruyuki, was the day before I left. They were asking me to go there and sort out the problem, except that was pretty much impossible. So I asked my friends to take care of it, and they did after about one week of panic.

The next part was cleaning my room and getting rid of the objects I no longer needed. I left a lot of things to my friends Nnadi, Yusef, Islam, and Sorata. I sold some other things as well, although I didn't make much money. This included all my kitchen stuff, pans and plates, the appliances such as my rice cooker and my toaster, as well as some other practical objects such as blankets and note pads.

The last part of my preparation was saying good bye to everyone, which in itself was quite a task. Over a year, I got to meet many MANY people from around the world, and saying goodbye to all of them was obviously impossible. So I mainly kept it to my close friends and those who helped me out during my stay here as well as most of the Judo teachers and coaches.
I had already started about three or four months before I left, knowing that I wouldn't get to see them anymore, and so I was mentally prepared for it. I told myself not to cry, and I held back most of my emotions. I gave hugs to dozens of people, people I would most likely never see again, but had been a great part of my life here in Japan. The separation was harsh, but I knew it would come, so I felt in a sense relieved. One other thing that helped was the fact that we will have the Internet to easily keep in contact. So as I stated on my Facebook page, it's not a "good-bye" per say, but more a "See you later" kind of separation.

Now that school is over, I do actually have a break! The judo club is also off for a bit so I can now take time to breathe, think, and yep, you guessed it, plan. Even though it's summer, I want to take advantage of this time to centre myself, to take time to think, and prepare myself for the next wave. So what are my plans for the summer?

First let's talk about what I want to accomplish.

 - I really REALLY need to clean my room. Since I am not even sure that I can stay here in the Kaikan after September, I might as well prepare myself for the worst scenario. On top of that, I found my mind going a little crazy last semester, due to the status of my room. It took me more time to find things and in the end caused me more stress.

 - I would like to make some music. I haven't really talked about my music here yet, but I'm still doing as much as I can to continue making music during my spare time... This summer, I want to make a couple more tracks and a few more mixes. I don't really have time to do so otherwise.

 - I want to go to the beach! And I already made plans to go!

 - I want to keep working out. I have a training camp with the team during the third week of August, so I want to be at my best for that.

 - I want to eat well. I want to gorge myself with fruits since I haven't really done so since I've been here. I also want to find easy recipes that are full of vegetables, high protein, and so-so carbs. That way I'll be ready to go for the next term.

 - I want to keep my studies going. Japanese (language) is now part of me, but I still need to keep at it, especially while I'm here.

 - Lastly, I want to have some fun. I think I've had a lot of fun already since the summer started, which is great.

Now a few events that are going to happen this summer include going to Disney Sea with my girlfriend (August 9^th), the training camp with the team (August 17^th to 22^nd), and climbing Mount. Fuji, most likely at the end of the summer.

Now I have one last goal. I want to write a lot of blogs, so as much as I can, I will try to write one blog a day (or week) for most of the summer. The topics might get a little wild, but that's just more fun isn't it?

Also, I should probably say that most of those with whom I have studied with for one year now will be heading back to their own country throughout the summer. Miguel will be leaving soon, Carlos already left. Slowly but surely, the Kaikan is becoming more and more empty every day. Quite sad to think that I will most likely never see any of them again. But who knows.

(Note to self: I have to keep in mind that I need to start looking into resuming my courses at the University of Winnipeg in January.)