Leaving soon?

I last posted on Saturday—what happened? Well, Saturday was a good day, and I did a lot of cleaning and organizing in preparation for leaving. In the evening I was invited to a board game night. I had three drinks in my fridge that I had bought a while back because the flavors were interesting, but I haven’t felt like drinking alcohol since the beginning of the year. I think the extent of my drinking has been one beer and a few sips of wine here and there. Anyway, so I brought those drinks to the party and drank them, and I also tried a glass of umeshu that someone else brought. Normally this much would be enough to keep me comfortable for two or three hours. That night though, I think the super sweet and salty umeshu, a lack of recent drinking, and probably some dehydration combined to make me feel sick. So Sunday I was miserable, and I ended up staying in bed and playing Terraria most of the day. Oddly, my internet was also out, so I couldn’t even review Bible verses (another reason that I should be motivated to finish my program), and I couldn’t access my to-do list.

The internet came back on Monday evening, but by then I was thinking obsessively about Terraria. I last played this game not long before coming to Japan in 2017, and there is supposed to be a new and final big update coming out this year, which I’ve been thinking about and that partially induced me to pick it up again. It isn’t as much of a sandbox game as most of the games that I play these days, so I don’t think I can spend as much time on it as my historical simulator or Factorio. Anyway, after this weekend I will be very busy with schoolwork and prepping to go home, so I really can’t afford to play much. I still haven’t come up with a mechanism to pull myself out of a gaming haze, but I think this time the imminence of my departure will keep me from getting too immersed.

Yesterday I was working on a quiz/presentation about my hero, Harry Potter (not really true, but a convenient fiction), and I googled “white pet.” One of the results that came up was a white rat from an article that advocated rats as pets. I recently talked to Mom and Dad about their mouse problem, and in one of the fanfictions that I was reading they talked about how dirty rats were, so I was intrigued by this article. I’ve read articles about cats and dogs as pets, and even fish, but this article was the first that made me think I might actually want a pet. Rats are apparently quite clean, can be trained (even potty-trained!), have definite personalities, will cuddle and do their own kind of purring. Also, they don’t take up much space, nor do they live long, so they could be a great pet for me. Still, it’s irresponsible to get a pet when I’m uncertain about my own future, so I’m definitely not making any plans to do so.

Yesterday some people mentioned the quarantine to me, so today I looked at the news. I didn’t find any new information about it, but I did notice that the change fees for flights have been waived. Given that, it only makes sense for me to change my flight to the day that I have to leave my apartment. That settles some of my unease—I was worried about where I would find accommodation for myself and all my luggage for four nights. The only problem with this is that now I have even less time to get rid of all my stuff. I’m feeling a bit more optimistic because I found out that several of my coworkers are staying for another year, but my bicycle and its gear still seem like they will be difficult to sell.

If my departure can be moved to next week, I think I will suspend my goals for March. I’m doing poorly so far, and with the disruption of hurried packing and re-accommodating to a new situation, there’s little chance that I will meet any of my goals anyway or even make substantial progress, at least before returning home.