Trust

Thus far, my faithful readers, I have really only relayed to you "the good" concerning my time here. In this entry I'd like to go a bit deeper and show you "the bad and the ugly" which, you will see, is mainly caused by myself.

First, though, another observation. It's been my experience that when a person is acting overly cheerful, that person is covering up for something (depression, eating disorder, some kind of addiction). Japan is the same way. On the outside it's bright pink, laughing, even pooping out smiley faces, but in reality it's terribly sad. It has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Tragic.

If there's one thing God is trying to teach me here it's trust. I wake up every morning wondering why I'm here, stepping into yet another day where 90% of the time I won't know what's going on. God just says "Trust Me." All I can say is "OK."

It's been 5 months now, and I'm finding it hard to attach myself fully. I'm not entirely sure why. I'm sure language and the lack of diversity have something to do with it. By this point I should be able to read Hiragana and Katakana like nothing, but I'm not. I feel really out of place with the international group at church because everyone is North American. I can't fully explain it but I always feel out of place in groups of North Americans unless they're also TCKs. Simple solution--learn Japanese! Okay, give me 6 years...

It's a little rough having so little independence and being treated like I'm some strange mix of celebrity and second-class citizen. It's strange to have your eyes brim with tears when you look in your mailbox and find a letter not only in English but written by someone who cares and not Sallie Mae.

Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad I'm here and I am having fun. I just want to also share that life isn't a picnic and that I'm not one of those people hiding behind a colorful and happy façade.

Clearly you've never been to Singapore

As most of you who read this probably know, I just got back from a 2 week vacation in Malaysia and Singapore. It was so great! I'm not going to give you a day-by-day recollection of my trip because that would be boring and take far too much time. Instead I'll give you a quick overview, and if you want more details just ask me. My time in Malaysia was spent in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. Since I came to hang out with this guy,I didn't really do anything touristy, which was great--my experience was far richer that way and that's exactly what I wanted. I got to know a lot of different people which was quite nice. According to Mark, the Malaysian motto is "Live to eat, not eat to live" and I believe it. The food is so cheap and so good! The markets and real street food and music from the mosques were all beautiful reminders of pieces of my childhood that I haven't been able to re-visit. I'm far more interested in people than things, so for me, being non-touristy with Mark, his family, and friends was the perfect vacation. In Singapore, the gold called to me...

...and fortunately for me I ran into no other pirates. Since we were only there for 3 days, we didn't even scratch the surface of what Singapore's really all about--I'd like to find out one day.

You can see more pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027487&l=a25ad&id=168302105