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MARLOWE'S THOUGHT NOTE
ENTRY NAME: A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
ENTRY DATE: OCTOBER 10, 2023, 10:33 PM
Before this, most of the 'thoughts' blog posts were about general topics such as gaming, or the update of the blog, or a very predictable post about cultural authoritarianism. For today's post, I want to give you a short update on my life after my last blog entry and introduce you the topic of today: becoming a stranger in a strange land, and adulthood.
Shortly after my last blog update, I became very preoccupied with various fears surrounding my health, primarily different types of cancers, and this fear has made my life hell for a short period of time. Right now, the fear is still there, as I am terrified with the possibility of having melanoma due to several atypical moles and the change in my mole, hopefully due to me scratching and irritating it. I think this fear has spawned due to my lingering fear of death and losing control of my life. I wanted to control every aspect of my life, until there are no uncertainities left. The idea of something unexpected ruining my life is very unsettling to me.
Apart from the fear of death and cancers, there are some positive things in life, and this is what I want to talk about today. I became a university student, in an international undergrad program of a fairly prestigious university in Japan. Since late september, I moved into a dorm, and for the first time, am living alone and living in a different country. It is my first time being an actual 'adult', not just something listed on my ID card, but an actual adult human who has to be responsible of herself, and at the same time, enjoy the many freedoms that come with it. My life is littered with uncertainities, not just the possibility of death, but of life too.
A few days after I arrived here in Japan, I visited the city center for the first time, alone. It was actually not the first time visiting that city. I had visited it 4 times with my family before, during vacations. But it was the first time visiting it alone as an adult, a student, not as a tourist. In not very fluent Japanese, I asked many people about what train to take, and where to find some building where there is a second hand bookstore I wanted to visit. I passed by stores and streets that were familiar to me, yet very strange at the same time. It is very surreal living in another country because sometimes it does not feel real at all. It feels like a dream that you will wake up from and find yourself in your dark and empty and miserable room with disappointing academic achievements.
And as I walked past the crowds of families and laughing children, schoolgirls in long grey skirts and black dress shoes, office workers sitting together behind the brightly lit windows of a coffee shop, I couldn't help but look at all the foreigners there and feel a strange sense of camaraderie, a sense that we were all strangers in a strange land. Aliens gathered around the crosswalk of a bustling metropolis of a strange planet, light years away from home. I like it here. But the kimchi here tastes too sweet, and I miss the taste of spiciness sometimes.
I made friends here, and I could not during high school. I met friends with shared interests, from all across the world. And they are very genuine and chill people. I like it here, and sometimes when I lie in my dorm bed I don't want the time to pass at all. I want to live perpetually frozen in the October of 2023, never growing old, and never dying.
It was a very personal post, and I will try to reveal as little personal information as possible. I might delete or modify some parts if it is too cringe.