He did it! Down the annals of history, hope will come, to and from a man destined for greatness and a world ready for change. Thank you. Pride isn’t the word, Exuberance is more likely the feeling and only the rolling river will know the way the stone tumbles. Good days to come and darkness left behind. Or so we pray…

The winter’s creeping up on me. Stalking me in my shadows. And like the dementor’s kiss, its slowly draining the happiness and energy out of me (been reading Harry Potter again). I don’t talk about this much, this seasonal depression that I get, but I’ll tell you a story as a way for people to understand what afflicts me and so you can understand the mind of the crestfallen, sullen.

During the winter semester of my sophomore year in college I fell into the abyss. It felt like there was no warmth in this world, that the joy and pleasures of life ceased to exist. And so I would lay inanimate on our huge sofa and stare distantly past the television set. I wanted to drop out of school, I wanted to go far far away so I could let the darkness consume me, away from the people I cared about and away from the irregular pressures of life.

But instead I battled through the cold and dismal months of winter and decided to take a solo road trip during Spring Break up to Seattle. One man and a car driving up the windy roads of Pacific Coast 1, stopping at friends known and random to sleep, eating at fast food diners, all the while figuring out what the hell I was going to do and what I was really searching for.

When I got there, there was a strange awkward encounter with someone who helped show me a different view of this world. After lunch and goodbyes, I was leaving Seattle after staying only half a day. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the city, I had just found what I needed, a way to relieve some of the pressure that was building up in my system. And I never talked to that person again but I’m sure that there was an understanding between a pupil and his teacher, between a boy that had yet to live his life and a well worn traveler.

I returned home after a few more detours and a speeding ticket on highway 101. And when I got back to the regular world, I was stronger in spirit as if my soul had rushed back into me and the void was closed behind me.

Looking back at that moment in my life, I can see a lot of the mistakes that I made. I allowed myself to slip too deep into the darkness, I was passive against the waves of depression, and I didn’t let anyone else really understand what was going on inside of me. I pushed away the people that could help me and ruined some friendships that meant a lot to me at the time. But the winters after the darkness went unnoticed because I was already consumed with other matters, political organizations and romances, that distracted me from the shadows that loomed over me.

So now I am ready. Ready to face the onslaught of the dreary road ahead of me. I have allies near and far, experience and knowledge of what afflicts me, and the will to do the right thing for myself now.

I’ve recently realized that there’s a disparity in the organization of my life. All the time I spend on my computer, organizing files and streamlining my workflow, has made my computing prowess a force to be reckoned with. But the rest of my life has been left in the dust.

File Systems Organization and Application Launching shortcuts have been a boon to my computing time, but there’s nothing like that outside of the “box”. I spend hours on cleaning, making materials for classes, or just lazing the days away. Goals and dreams have been slowly rotting on the shelf.

I have my “Nerd Task” to-do list but my daily to-do list seems paltry to the queue that includes: “1. Install bootable linux on usb drive. 2. Build NAS server. 3. Evaluate the merits of PSP/iPod Touch etc…”.

Its time for a little refresh. And as the creeping of Fall inches toward Winter, with my spirits and mood waning with the incremental decrease in light, I have to figure out a way out of the “rut” that I’ve built around me. There’s a need for me to set into motion a plan to transform the way I live life again.

But my worst fear is stalking me in the distance, the fear that I’ll grow old here before I really ever grow up.

It was a long tiring weekend. So I went where I usually go in order to relieve aching muscles and tensed nerves in Japan, the local onsen (hot spring spa). There I sat in different pools of water, Goldilock-like in my pursuit of the perfect pool. “No, not this one, it’s too hot. And no, not this one, its freezing cold”. When I settled on the reclining pool with the jets that gently massage your feet, I happened to see something peculiar.

There was a small green frog, precariously dangling on the top of the window. He was outside and it was a two story building. Somehow he had managed to get his right hand caught on the web of a spider. He spun and writhed as he tried to free himself from the web.

Let’s call him Joey, Joey the tree frog. How he got there in the first place, I have no idea. He must have been the son of a noble tree frog king in Africa, a king that was exiled from his land. With the king’s prospects and honor dashed away, he died a broken visage of his former self, spiraling fast into the abyss with dreams of ascending to the throne once more.

In the shadow of the hopes that eluded him, Joey traveled abroad searching for answers for himself, seeking a new life and a new destiny. With aspirations fit for a prince, he managed to climb to the top of the onsen and possibly steal an ensnared fly from the grips of the spider’s web. But his ambitions were too lofty, thought he was the bull frog of the jungle. There, hanging by a thread he desperately fought, wasting away his energy, trying in vain to escape. But his struggle for freedom would also mean the imminent possibility a worst fate. His fall from the top of the window would send him careening down to the hard depths below.

I left the onsen. I don’t know what happened to Joey. My body was soothed, my fingers little dried fruits, and my questions unsolved.

Japanese summers are all about heat and humidity, especially humidity with the hygrometer peaking at the 94% range thus far. Spring’s sweet, cool breeze is forced to retreat by the sweat inducing wave of moisture. Its the antithesis to winter’s dry, freezing conditions that tells me I’m no longer in Southern California with its two seasons; hot summer and cool summer.

Japanese summer’s also mark the point in the JET calendar for transition. Its about saying hello to intolerable humidity and goodbye to good friends and strangers alike, for its the time that the new, rosy-eyed recruits come swarming into the country and the veterans and culturally-shocked casualties flee the island nation.

I’ve been starting the goodbye process early, its my way of fully showing appreciation to the people who’ve meant a lot to me in this short life. There have been the goodbyes that have ended with the promise of a future, perhaps another encounter on shores of a different ocean. And others that were abruptly terminated with an omnidirectional wave and a tossing of the last earth that buried good and bad times.

Goodbyes are always hard if you’re the type who opens yourself completely to other people.

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But on the bright side, I got a great bunch of people staying and the hope that the new wave of JETs will be able to fill in the gaps. So to leavers and stayers of Miyagi, I wish you all good luck in your next year of adventures.