The one-year mark approaches

One time Caleb (an American friend of mine) and I were having this long conversation in the cafeteria of Kyoto University together with our Israeli friend. To be honest, the three of us were there for over 3 hours, debating love, war and other topics of lesser gravitas. At one point we entered the realm of hobbies and more particularly, creative output. Caleb plays the guitar, writes song lyrics and I don't know how many other things he mentioned. Undercover mossad spy Estie was no stranger to things alike either, writing poetry occasionally or updating her blog.

Then my number was up. "... Uhm... well uhm...". I tried to remember what that particular, creative thing was that I did... How could it slip my mind?... My brain cells were going in over-drive only to discover there was nothing there to discover.
"Don't you have any creative output whatsoever?" Caleb's remark came as a revelation to myself, although it embarrassed me slightly at the time. He was right; I had no real, creative output. Even though I am an avid consumer and fan of the brain power and creative efforts of others, I myself contributed nothing to the noble field of the arts. Ouch!
Caleb assured me that you don't neccesarily HAVE to have a creative outlet and that appreciating the artistic creations of others is a laudable thing on itself.

However, ever since this small epiphany sporadically re-entered my mind, up until today when I finally put my aspiration for a blog into practice. Many friends of mine here in Japan atrust their experiences and feelings to the internet and I admire them for it. So why not give it a shot myself. At the very least it will be a good exercise exploring my limitations concerning the English language. And maybe someday I will even get satisfaction out of it up to the point where I can't live anymore without regularly writing down something. Who knows. One thing though I will try to cautiously avoid: merely summing up activities. In the past I have noticed I'm prone to do so. Surely with this blogging-experience I must try to do more.

This short introduction being said, pretty soon I will have been here in Japan for one entire year. I arrived April 5th, 2006. Another two years are in store for me. Luckily I've had the fortune of surrounding myself with awesome friends and partying/having fun certainly tops my agenda here. What an incredibly fun year I have had so far...
I promise to work on the studying a bit more starting from April, when I enter my master's program (a thought undoubtedly shared by most of my fellow Monbusho-students). But until then it's technically vacation here so I shouldn't feel quite so bad for not touching the books. After all, I have to charge up my study-battery for the start of classes again (an excuse, I know). Right now it is carpe diem!