Profiscor on the Your-Japan Blog Network

As the leaves change their colour from vibrant green to a red-brown, this place only becomes more beautiful. I find myself wanting to explore every corner.

I woke up one day last week and looked around my dingy little room and for the first time in a long time I felt free. I sat up in bed and peeked out the window. The sun was shining right into my room and suddenly I felt this surge of life in myself. Like the old adventurous Advena who told everyone that she’d one day end up in Tokyo had been awaked from deep within…Okay so I’m not exactly in Tokyo, but I ain’t done too bad.

With this thought in my head I got out of bed and put in my hands in the air to stretch.

I could feel the warm sunlight on my face on this cold autumn morning. I brushed my teeth and got dressed.

I pulled back the curtains and looked at all the people cycling outside. Today is a new day. I am here and I am me, this is now and I have this entire place to explore. So what’s stopping me?

I finish class with a smile on my face. A really cool American guy that I’ve gotten to know over the past three months told me he was staying for a longer time than originally scheduled. I’m going to call him James.

James has always stood out because instead of telling you how much better America is than everywhere else, he tends to take the criticism of his country or yours, and turns it in to a question for you. He’s really cool to talk to and one a few occasions where we’ve been in the same place at the same time I always end up having a great time just talking and always had something really interesting to think about afterwards. So it made me really glad he was staying.

I walk with James out of the class and tell him I’m really glad he’s sticking around. I say bye to him, and catch up with Smith.

As a ritual, after class, myself, Smith and one of the other American guys who I’m going to call David cycle to the bakery/café on campus and see if we can find a seat to drink some coffee, talk about class, and usually I complain about lab.

Today was no exception. We cycled down the path, past the library and to the bakery.

We were lucky today and we found some seats. There was a test the next day so both Smith and I decided we would skip labs and just work on some Japanese grammar.

We were working for a while, in between sips of coffee and bites of baked goods.

I saw Ryuusuke with a friend eating lunch and looking at his electronic dictionary. He had his head turned away from me and Smith.

“Hey, isn’t that Ryuusuke? Why doesn’t he come up and say hello?”

Ryuusuke hadn’t spoken to me since the night I asked him if he wanted to hang out. But that’s another can of worms.

Plus, he thinks I care, but I don’t.

I cut Smith off in mid-sentence.

“Let’s go to Nagoya!”

Smith looks up at me and pauses,

“Yeah we can do” he says calmly.

Smith is pretty easy going on the whole so he tends to go with the flow.

“I’m going to e-mail Satori to help us!” I say

“Wow, Satori, there’s a name I havn’t heard in ages…You know he loves you”

“You say that about everyone…”

I know I haven’t mentioned him before but Satori is my language partner. In my first year my class was paired up with students from Nagoya University. We were able to choose from a list of students who sent us their contact details and a little description about themselves and their hobbies.

I remember Smith picking his penpal out first “She plays guitar, I think that’s cool I’m going to pick her”

The other 3 students picked theirs with ease, but I remember thinking “wow, this people have lives on the other side of the world…And I get to choose who I interact with…Who do I choose?!”

My eyes scrolled to Satori’s name on the list. His description stuck out primarily because he had written only one dull line. Telling me his name, and that he was in the athletics team.

Mystery always gets my attention so it was done, I picked Satori. I e-mailed him for a while and then he came to my university in the spring of 2007. And let me tell you I pretty much lucked out on my penpal. He’s one of the sweetest, kindest people I’ve ever met. He’s hard working and genuine and just an all round good guy. Unlike his description, he’s a fountain of energy and someone who is always striving to be better at the things he does.

Satori is going to back to England to start a course in London which he’s funding himself, on the 12^th of December.

For some reason he really loves England and English English. When speaking English he’ll say lift, instead of elevator, crisps instead of chips, chips instead of French fries etc…He’s a massive fan of “Little Britain” too.

I haven’t seen Satori since I hugged him and his friends goodbye last summer in Bond Street tube station. They were getting a different train to me and then leaving for Heathrow early the next morning.

So here I am!

Nagoya, here I come!

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